In the wake of the buccaneers

by A. Hyatt Verrill

This treacherous behavior on the part of a supposed friend made Bonnet melancholy, if we are to believe his biographer, and may have led to his undoing, for shortly afterward—in 1718, to be exact—he was taken prisoner off the Carolinas. He managed to make good his escape in a canoe, but a reward of seventy pounds sterling was offered for him, and the following year he was captured at Sullivan’s Island, was tried in Charleston, and, having been sentenced to death, was hanged at White Point. Possibly poor Major Bonnet was not sorry to find peace even at the end of the hangman’s rope, for his adventures had brought him little more comfort or ease than his home life in Barbados; and it is even doubtful if his widow wept over his demise, or mended her ways. Of her we know nothing; she slips quite out of the story with the departure of her spouse on The Revenge, and even Johnson in his “History of the Pyrates” was too gallant to do more than hint at her character by stating that “This humour of going a pyrating was believed to proceed from a disorder of the mind [[163]]said to have been occasioned by some discomforts in the marriage state.”

However, we do know, from historical records, that poor Stede was subjected to so lengthy a diatribe by the judge who condemned him (it filled six closely written pages) that even his wife’s scoldings must have seemed mild in comparison, and ere the judge’s long-winded advice as to leading the higher life was ended the major must have become so utterly worn out as actually to long for death.

Aside from Red Legs and the unfortunate Major Bonnet, Barbados, or, for that matter, any of the southern islands, have little to link them with the buccaneers; and as I was following in the wake of these adventurers, and not endeavoring to make a cruise of all the Antilles, the Vigilant sailed away from charming St. Kitts with Santo Domingo as her goal.

There was a long sail ahead, nearly three hundred and fifty miles to cover before we reached our objective point at Samana Bay, but we planned to break the stretch by a stop at St. Croix, one hundred and twenty-five miles from St. Kitts. Over a sparkling, sunny sea, with the wind on our quarter, we sped away from the fair green hills and downs of St. Kitts, left the great cone of Statia and the isolated, beetling peak of Saba looming [[164]]hazily and like phantom isles to the north, and with a broad wake of suds streaming far astern and a roaring, curling mass of foam beneath our bows, swept across Saba Bank.

It gives one a strange feeling to be sailing across the deep-blue Caribbean far from land and suddenly to look over a ship’s rails and plainly see bottom with its masses of corals, its great starfish, its huge black sea-cucumbers, and its clustered sponges under the keel. Many times have I sailed over Saba Bank, and never can I overcome the impression that the ship is about to touch the ragged coral so clearly visible; and the effect is even more remarkable when one is crossing the bank on a big steamship. Saba Bank extends for nearly forty miles east and west, and almost the same distance north and south, with from six to twenty fathoms of glass-clear water over it; and while in heavy weather large vessels avoid it, because of the huge seas that pile up in the shoal water and the danger of touching a reef, in calm weather they pass unhesitatingly across it.

Beyond Saba Bank we were out of sight of land, and on that wide waste of waters stretching unbroken, even by a sail, to the horizon on every side, the little Vigilant seemed pitifully small. More than ever was I impressed with the courage, the [[165]]confidence, and the faith in God which led the early voyagers and discoverers over this unknown, uncharted sea in craft far smaller and less seaworthy than the Vigilant. Rarely do we stop to consider what marvelous undertakings and great adventures those ancient voyages were. In miserable tubs—unwieldy, unfit for beating to windward with any degree of success, clumsily sparred, and uncouthly rigged—the daring navigators crossed the broad Atlantic and cruised hither and yon among the reefs and isles of the Caribbean. The wonder is that they did not all pile their timbers upon the ragged coral reefs and low-lying cays, or that they ever managed to find the same island twice. To steer a course across the Caribbean and raise one of the isles above one’s bows is no small undertaking in a well-found vessel and with the aid of modern instruments, and how Columbus and his fellows ever accomplished it, with their crude appliances and with no charts to guide them, is a mystery which ever fills me with wonder.

And as I lolled upon the Vigilant’s deck while our little ship with flowing sheets plunged on to the westward, I also wondered how big Sam could steer so unerringly for St. Croix—or if he could. But he seemed to be perfectly confident of himself, [[166]]grasping the wheel in those great black hands of his, casting an occasional glance at the bellying sails, balancing himself on his huge sinewy legs to the heave of the deck, and peering straight ahead with no heed to the compass, as though his eyes could pierce the distance and see the hills of St. Croix beyond the horizon.

Each day I took the sun and worked out our position, purely as a precautionary measure; but I never revealed the results to Sam, for I was curious to see just how accurately he could sail by dead reckoning, or instinct, or whatever it was.

Once, as I stood near the taffrail and squinted through my sextant, Sam chuckled, and a broad grin spread over his black, good-natured face.

“Ah don’ guess you think Ah kin mek Santa Cruz, Chief,” he ventured.