| PAGE | |
| CHAPTER I. | |
| OF MY BOYHOOD, AND HOW, BEING CAST AWAY AT SEA, I AM CARRIED TO THE WEST INDIESAGAINST MY WILL | [1] |
| CHAPTER II. | |
| OF MY ESCAPE FROM THE FRENCH SHIP, AND MY LANDING IN HISPANIOLA | [18] |
| CHAPTER III. | |
| I JOIN A BROTHERHOOD OF HUNTERS AND ADVENTURERS ON THE COAST | [27] |
| CHAPTER IV. | |
| OF THE LIFE OF A BUCCANEER | [39] |
| CHAPTER V. | |
| HOW WE ENCOUNTER GREAT DANGERS, THE SPANIARDS ATTACKING US | [44] |
| CHAPTER VI. | |
| HOW THE DEADLY FEVER OF THE COAST FASTENS ON ME | [58] |
| CHAPTER VII. | |
| THE BUCCANEERS TIRE OF THE LIFE ON SHORE, AND DETERMINE TO GO AGAIN TO SEA | [64] |
| CHAPTER VIII. | |
| THE LEGEND OF FOUL-WEATHER DON | [73] |
| CHAPTER IX. | |
| THE AUTHOR, WITH SUNDRY OF HIS COMRADES, SET OUT FOR THE CREEK WHERE HE LEFT HISBARK, AND THERE BRAVELY CAPTURE A SPANISH SCHOONER | [89] |
| CHAPTER X. | |
| THEY RETURN WITH THE PRIZE TO THE MARMOUSETTES, AND NICKY HAMSTRING SHORTLY RELATESHIS HISTORY | [103] |
| CHAPTER XI. | |
| THE BUCCANEERS PRESENTLY SET SAIL IN THE SCHOONER FOR JAMAICA, WITH A RELATION OFTHE EVENTS WHICH HAPPENED THERE | [110] |
| CHAPTER XII. | |
| OF THE DEATH OF AN OLD FRIEND | [125] |
| CHAPTER XIII. | |
| THE BUCCANEERS SAIL FOR THE SPANISH MAIN, AND ARE CHASED BY A GREAT SHIP OF WAR | [131] |
| CHAPTER XIV. | |
| THE STRANGE ADVENTURE OF THE UNKNOWN SHOALS AND THE DWARF PILOT | [140] |
| CHAPTER XV. | |
| AT LENGTH THEY CATCH THE DWARF PILOT, AND HEAR STRANGE THINGS TOUCHING A TREASURE | [157] |
| CHAPTER XVI. | |
| HOW THE DWARF TURNS TRAITOR, AND OF HIS FATE | [170] |
| CHAPTER XVII. | |
| OF THEIR UNSUCCESSFUL SEARCH FOR THE SUNKEN TREASURE—WEARYING AT LENGTH OF THEUNDERTAKING, THEY PURSUE THEIR COURSE—THE LEGEND OF ‘NELL’S BEACON,’ OR THE ‘CORPUS SANT’ | [183] |
| CHAPTER XVIII. | |
| A KNAVE OF THE CREW PLAYING WITH COGGED DICE IS KEEL-HAULED | [191] |
| CHAPTER XIX. | |
| WE CRUISE OFF CARTHAGENA AWAITING THE GALLEON, AND I FALL INTO THE HANDS OF THESPANIARDS | [205] |
| CHAPTER XX. | |
| I AM TRIED AND TORTURED BY THE SPANIARDS | [220] |
| CHAPTER XXI. | |
| HOW I ESCAPE FROM THE SPANISH GUARDHOUSE—AM CHASED BY BLOOD-HOUNDS IN THE WOODS,AND HOW AT LENGTH I FIND A STRANGE ASYLUM | [243] |
| CHAPTER XXII. | |
| THE FAMILY OF THE SPANISH MERCHANT | [263] |
| CHAPTER XXIII. | |
| HOW WE SAIL TO JOIN THE PEARL FLEET, AND THE NEGRO DIVER’S STORY | [282] |
| CHAPTER XXIV. | |
| MY ADVENTURES AMONG THE PEARL FISHERS, AND MY ESCAPE FROM THE FLEET | [303] |
| CHAPTER XXV. | |
| THE PIRAGUA IS PICKED UP BY A GREAT PRIVATEER, AND I FIND MYSELF AMONG NEW SHIPMATES | [338] |
| CHAPTER XXVI. | |
| THE LEGEND OF THE DEMON WHO HAUNTS POINT MORANT IN JAMAICA | [357] |
| CHAPTER XXVII. | |
| WHAT HAPPENS ABOARD THE ‘SAUCY SUSAN’—AND THE ENDING OF HER AND HER CREW | [369] |
| CHAPTER XXVIII. | |
| THE FOODLESS BOAT AND THE ISLAND | [397] |
| CHAPTER XXIX. | |
| THE DISCOVERY OF A NEW WORLD | [412] |
| CHAPTER THE LAST. | |
| I MEET OLD FRIENDS | [416] |
LEONARD LINDSAY;
OR,
THE STORY OF A BUCCANEER.
CHAPTER I.
OF MY BOYHOOD, AND HOW, BEING CAST AWAY AT SEA, I AM
CARRIED TO THE WEST INDIES AGAINST MY WILL.
It was in the fair sunlight of a May morning, in the year of Grace 1672, that that great brave ship, the Golden Grove of Leith, hoisted her broad sails, with many a fluttering pendant and streamer above them, and stood proudly down the Firth of Forth, designing to reach the open ocean, not far from the hill, well known to mariners by the name of the North Berwick Law. On board of the Golden Grove, I, Leonard Lindsay, then in my twenty-second year, was, you must know, a sailor, and I hope a bold one. My father was a fisherman, and, as I may say, his coble was my cradle. Many a rough rocking in truth it bestowed upon me, for it was his use even before I could go alone, to carry me with him a fishing, wrapped up, it may be, in a tattered sail, while my mother, with a creel upon her back, journeyed through the landward towns, and to the houses of the gentry, to sell the spoil of hook and net.
We fared hard and worked hard; for no more industrious folk lived in the fisher-town of Kirk Leslie, a pleasant and goodly spot, lying not far from the East Neuk of Fife, than old Davie Lindsay and Jess, his wife and my mother. Many a weary night and day have come and gone since I beheld that beach whereon I was born; but I can yet shut my eyes and see our cottage and our boat—called the “Royal Thistle”—rocking at the lee of the long rough pier of unhewn whinstone, gathered from the wild muirs around, which ran into the sea and sheltered the little fisher harbour, formed by the burn of Balwearie, where it joins the waters of its black pools to the salt brine. Opposite our house was a pretty green bourock, as we called it, that is to say, a little hill, mostly of bright green turf, with bunches of bent and long grass, which rustled with a sharp sad sound when the east wind blew snell, and creeping cosily into the chimney neuk, we would listen to the roaring of the sea. But the bourock was oftentimes brown with nets or with wet sails stretched there to dry, and below it there lay half-buried in the sand, old boats, mouldering away and masts and oars all shivered, bleaching like big bones in the sun and the rain.
I remember old Davie Lindsay my father well. He was a stern, big man, with a grisly grey beard, shaved but once a month. No fisher on the coast had a surer hand for the tiller, or a firmer gripe to haul aft the sheet of the lugsail in a fresh breeze and a gathering sea. Often when we were rising and falling on the easterly swell, half-a-score miles from Kirk Leslie pier, he loved to tell me old-world tales and sing old-world songs of the sea. Then would he recount how the Rover sunk the bell which good abbot Ignatius, of Aberbrothwick, caused to be placed upon the wild Bell Rock, as a guide to poor mariners; and how the pirate dreed the weird—that is, underwent the fate—he had prepared for himself, and was lost with ship and crew on that very reef. Sometimes, too, he would drop his voice, and when I came close to him, he would speak of great monsters in the sea; of the ocean snake, whose head looked up at the bridge of Stirling, and whose tail went nine times round the Bass; of singing mermaids, who come upon the yellow sands at night, and beguile men with their false lays, till they leave house and home, being bewitched by the glamour of elfin palaces under the brine; and, most terrible of all, of phantom ships with crews of ghosts, which sailors see by the pale glimmerings of the moon, when it shines through the driving scud, upon a mirk midnight and a roaring sea. But, then, if I was frightened and cried, my father would straightway change the theme, and burst out with a strong clear voice into some loud fishing-song, or, what I loved better still, into some brave, ancient ballad, about the fair kingdom of Scotland, and its gallant kings and stalwart knights; and of such, my favourite was the lay of Sir Patrick Spens, for he was both a knight and a sailor.
“The king sits in Dunfermline town,