The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1903-12-13

Treaty of Utrecht, the vast number of
privateers which had been fitted out by
the contending parties found their oc-
cupation gone. Some took to the more
peaceful but less lucrative ways of or
binary commerce, others were absorbed
into the fishing fleets and few of the
more reckless hoisted the Jolly Rodger
at. the mizzen and the bloody flag at
the main, declaring a private war upon
their own account against the whole
human race.
With mixed crews, recruited from ev-
cry nation, they secured the seas, dis
appearing occasionally to careen in
some lonely inlet, or putting in for a
debauch at some outlying port, where
they dazzled the inhabitants by their
lavishness and Mortified them by their
brutalities. 1t took stout seaman in
those days to ply his calling In the
Caribbean Gulf.
Such man was Captain John Scar
row of the ship Morning Star, and yet !
he breathed a long sigh of relief when
he heard the splash OF the falling~an-
Choir and swung at his moorings with
in hundred yards of the guns of the
citadel Of Basseterre. st. kits was
his final port of call, and early next
morning his bowsprit would be pointed
for old England. He had had enough
of those robber-haunted seas. Even
since he had left Maracaibo upon the
Main, with his full lading of sugar and
red pepper, he had WINGED at every top
sail which glimnered over the violet
edge OF the tropical sea.
Captain Sharkey of the twenty-gun
pirate barque, Happy Delivery, had
passed down the coast and had Uttered
it with Quilted vessels and with muir
dered men. Dreadful anecdotes were
current of his grim pleasantries and of
his inflexible ferocity. From the Ba-
hamas to the Main his coal black
barque, with the ambiguous name, had
been freighted with death and many
things which are worse than death. So
nervous was Captain Scarrow, with his
new full-rigged ship and her full and
valuable lading that he struck out to
the west as far as Birds Island to be
out of the usual track of commerce.
And yet even in those solitary waters
he had been unable to shake off sinister
traces of Captain Sharkey.
One morning they had raised a single
skiff adrift upon the face of the ocean.
Its only occupant was a delirious sea-
man, who yelled hoarsely as they
hoisted him aboard, and showed a
dried-up tongue like black and wrfnk-
led fungus at the back of his mouth.
Water and nursing soon transformed
him into the strongest and smartest
sailor on the ship. He was from Mar
blehead. in New England, it seemed,
and the sole survivor of schooner
which had been scuttled by the dread
full Sharkey.
Now that they lay under the guns of
Basseterre, all danger from the pirate
was at an end and yet the thought of
him lay heavily upon the seaman's
mind as he watched the agents boat
shooting out from the Custom house
quay.
I'LL lay you a wager, Morgan said
he to the first mate, that the agent
will speak of Sharkey in the first hum
dred words that pass his lips
Well. captain, I'll have you silver
dollar and chance it, said the rough
old Bristol man beside him.
The negro rowers shot the boat
alongside and the 1inen-clad steersman
sprang up the ladder.
welcome, Captain Scarrow!" he
cried. Have you heard about Shar- ,
key?"
The captain grinned at the mate.
What deyiltry has he been up to
now7" he asked.
"Deviltry! You've not heard, then!
Why. we've got him safe under lock
and key here at Basseterre. He was
tried last Wednesday,, and he is to be
hanged tomorrow morning"
Captain and mate gave a shout Of
JOY, which an instant later was taken
up by the crew. Discipline was for
gotten as they scrambled up through
the break of the poop to hear the news.
The New Highlander was in the front
of them with radiant face turned up
to heaven, for he came Of the Puritan
stock.
"Sharkey to be hanged!' he cried.
seYou don't know, Master Agent, if
they lack a hangman, do you?"
stand back!" cried the mate, whose
outraged sense of discipline was even
stronger than his interest at the news.
"T'Il pay that dollar, Captain Scar
row, with the highest heart that ever
I paid a wager yet. How came the
villain to be taken?"
"Why, as to that, he became more
than his own comrades could abide, |
and they took such horror of him
that they would not have him on the
ship. So they narooned him upon the
Little Mangles to the south OF the
Mysteriosa Bank, and there he was
found by a Portobello trader, who
brought him in. There was talk OF
sending him to Jamaica to be tried, /
but our good little Governor, Sir
Charles Evan, would not hear of it.
He's my meat said he. and claim
the cooking of it IF you can stay till
tomorrow morning at 10, you'll see
the joint swinging,
IT Mish I could" said the captain,
wistfuily, ''but L am sadly behind time