Pirate tales from the law

by Arthur M. Harris

She went up to the coppery Indian sky in great festoons of smoke.

The Quedagh Merchant swung around, her decks now congested with the whole crew of the destroyed Adventure and into her compass box peering the firm hard face of William Kidd, mariner, of London, trusty and well-beloved.

VI

Now, the big question before the house was to dispose of the cargo of the Quedagh Merchant to the best profit. To get the officers of the ship and the clamant Armenians out of the way Kidd put them ashore, supposing that that was the last he would see of them. In this he was mistaken.

He stood away in the general direction of Madagascar. But on the way there he touched at one port and another where he entered into vigorous bargaining. He had in view the turning of the Quedagh Merchant’s cargo into coin, and seems to have managed this quite adroitly. There being no telegraphs or cables the outraged charterers could not, of course, catch up with him. Probably he was suspected but nobody cared very much; there the goods were and sellers who were sharp but not too close.

Their merchanting was interrupted long enough to pick up a Portuguese who got in their way, and once again there was a surplus of butter aboard. At that the pick-up brought them some five hundred pounds,—not too miserable a sum in those days or, for that matter, in any day.

Thus keeping an eye to business in both directions, trade and theft, they beat down to Madagascar, probably their principal market.

In this place Kidd was to encounter a veritable pirate, the very chap for whom the Admiralty had commissioned him to look. The story of this contact is quaint.

When the Quedagh Merchant dropped anchor in the channel, a canoe was seen putting out from the shore, manned by white men. As Kidd, leaning over the side, watched this craft paddling swiftly over the blue, languid waters, he thought some of the faces in it were not altogether unfamiliar. He became certain of this when a motley gang tumbled up the rope ladder and stood on the deck before him, awkwardly twisting their hats in their hands, and saluting by a drag at their long, unkempt forelocks. Why, to be sure, they were New Yorkers, old salts known to Kidd in prior and more respectable years. Well, what did they want?