My quest for buccaneer relics or remains on St. John was not very successful. Sam and my St. Thomas friends had, as I have already mentioned, assured me that the place possessed many remains such as buildings and forts; that pirate cannon [[84]]were scattered in the brush, and that weapons, pieces of eight, doubloons, and onzas had often been found by the natives. It was even hinted that somewhere about Rendezvouz Bay there was a vast pirate treasure hidden. But as there is no bit of land upon this planet whereon pirates actually or traditionally ever set foot that does not boast of its treasure-trove, I took the last-mentioned report for what it was worth and no more. Even on matter-of-fact St. Thomas—or, rather, on the outlying cays—there is supposed to be vast treasure concealed; and many a St. Thomian has spent much time and no little energy in industriously digging the soil in the vain hopes of unearthing this pirate gold.
However, I did place credence in the tales of pirates’ ruins and pirates’ guns, and did not think it either impossible or improbable that an occasional ancient coin had been found. Indeed, when one old man vowed that there were even pirate wrecks to be seen, coral-incrusted, upon the sandy bottom of Privateers’ Bay, I judged it within the bounds of possibility that this might be so, for buccaneers’ ships sometimes sank, like other craft, and wood—especially stout oak and teak—will endure for many centuries under salt water.
But, while I found St. John charming; although [[85]]I enjoyed my tramps and rambles through its bay-filled forests and along its beautiful coast; while I found many an overgrown, deserted plantation and crumbling ruin of great house and mill bearing mute testimony to the negro uprising of two centuries ago; while I stood upon the height whereon that sturdy little company of Dutch and Danes had gathered at old Peter Duerloo’s barricaded and cannon-guarded home and driven back the savage black hordes; while near at hand I tripped over a rusty, ancient carronade which I saw fit to believe was one of the “two small guns” which according to history had hurled their death-dealing grapeshot among the blood-crazed negroes, still, of buccaneers I found no indisputable trace. There are some ancient crumbling walls near the landing-places at both Privateers’ and Rendezvous Bay,—ruins of man’s handiwork evidently antedating the oldest Danish or Dutch masonry upon St. John,—but there is nothing to prove that these were buildings erected by pirates.
Once, to be sure, I was greatly elated when a white-headed, tottering old negro with lackluster eyes and toothless mouth hobbled to our camp on the beach and, carefully unwrapping several layers of dried banana leaves, produced a corroded sword blade with the cross hilt of a design dating back [[86]]to buccaneer days. He had found it, he mumbled in almost unintelligible words, while clearing away the brush preparatory to making a charcoal-pit, and I gladly paid him thrice the fifty cents he asked for it.
But my hopes were shattered and my romantic notions dispersed to the four winds when, in cleaning the dirt and rust from the blade, I uncovered the unmistakable imprint of the Broad Arrow near the hilt, with the half-obliterated arms of England near it. To be sure, that did not prove it was not a buccaneer’s sword, but it seemed far more probably a trusty blade dropped from the lifeless hand of one of those Britons who had sought to help the Danes suppress the revolting blacks. Though I preferred a pirate weapon for a souvenir, there were plenty of romantic and historical associations connected with this silent, long-lost witness of the bloody days of St. John’s past, whether wielded by sea-rover or by British soldier, and I was satisfied that I at least would not sail empty-handed from this half-deserted, drowsy little Virgin isle.
I must confess that I had grown very fond of the half-forgotten, sadly neglected place, and when at last the time came when we must up anchor and away from St. John, I felt really sorry to leave. [[87]]I had seen the island thoroughly. We had cast anchor in many a lovely bay and for the last night we were moored in the snug “Hurricane Hole” in Coral Bay, perhaps the finest natural harbor in all the West Indies.
Close at hand upon the headland were the scarcely distinguishable ruins of that first fort erected by old Governor Bredal, wherein the unsuspecting garrison had been butchered by the fagot-bearing slaves. Seated under the shadow of the big mainsail as the Vigilant rode to her anchor and the soft lapping of the waves along the beach and the chirp of crickets and the grunt of land frogs were borne to me on the soft night breeze, my mind harked back to those long-past days when these isles literally were steeped in blood.
Like a ghostly silhouette upon the hilltop I could see the ruined fort about which battle red and furious had raged. Up that green-clad slope had charged the soldiers of three, or perchance four, nations, first one then another winning the day and holding, for a brief space, the hard-won battlements, until another enemy, by greater prowess or more reckless sacrifice of life, wrested it from their grasp. Perchance, in later years, the buccaneers had also hurled themselves, through mimosa scrub and aloes, upon the stout stone walls, shouting and [[88]]cursing, falling and dying, but heedless of loss, still carrying on in face of blazing musket and thundering cannon.
Within those selfsame walls the frightened women and children and the white-faced, determined men from the little town and outlying estates had huddled, while, to their eyes, the pillars of smoke rising from blazing cane-fields and smoldering mansions told of the destructive savagery of revolting slaves; and from the wrecked town beside the harbor had come fiendish cries, revolting voodoo chants, and the terrifying boom of the savage tom-tom.
But now it was silent, deserted, weed-grown, and forgotten; the home of soft-winged bats, jewel-eyed lizards, and other creeping things. Gone were the ancient bronze pieces that once filled the embrasures; gone the tramping sentries; gone the staff that once upheld the flag. And I wondered if at dead of night the spirits of these long-gone and forgotten men and women, to whom the fort had meant so much, did not haunt that crumbling, picturesque old ruin. Perhaps, even now, they were looking down upon the starlit harbor, at the black tracery of the Vigilant’s rigging, and in her altered spars and renovated hull recognizing a craft which had been a familiar sight in [[89]]the days when they walked the earth, and loved and fought and suffered and were gay in turn.