III
At this port of Bab’s Key, then, the Mocca Fleet was being stuffed as the fox stole smoothly upon it from the Indian Ocean. About fourteen ships made up the fleet, going in mass for safety, and chartered by the usual polyglot crowd of Dutchmen, Arabians, Moors, Armenians and so on.
While the coolies sweated and strained and hauled bundles and bales aboard, certain odd-looking strangers sauntered about the docks, marking closely the lading of the vessels. These were Kidd’s men, spies he had sent ashore to warn him of the sailing of the fleet. With desiring eyes these men watched the caravans pouring in from the interior and emptying their freights into the various holds. Rich merchandise lay spread all about,—loot that their doughty commander was to appropriate without a thank-you and distribute among their tarry palms.
Not only that, but had you gone into the low, round hills that basined the town, you would have seen lurkers there, watching keenly the work on the fleet. More of the Adventure’s men, sentineled all around by the captain as a kind of double watch. Kidd, you notice, was a man of method; it was not going to be any fault of his if Bellamont and Company did not pay dividends.
Whether the presence of the spies had disturbed the skippers of the Mocca Fleet is conjectural, but when it did put to sea at length it was under both Dutch and English convoy. And in spite of Kidd’s keenness it got away without notice.
Only when morning came above the swelling deep, after two or three weeks of waiting, did the lookout cry the captain from his cabin that the fleet was passing. True enough! There over the horizon the high poops of the Mocca ships were awkwardly wagging away to safety.
Orders immediately showered the decks like the great drops of a thunderstorm. The anchor chain grated sharply against the bows while the shrouds were all at once black with racing men. A few minutes and the Adventure began to take the water slowly; sail after sail bellied out and quickly she leaped and ducked and flung herself upon the heels of her prey.
Fourteen ships convoyed by armed Dutch and English guards would seem a large bone for so small a terrier as the pirate boat to grasp. Something must take possession of the reason of English-speaking sailormen when combat promises, for long odds challenge rather than daunt them. Their maritime acts sparkle with just such feats as this—absurd but in a way heroic—and had Kidd had the color of law upon his work, the story of the Mocca Fleet would have echoed in generations of English schoolrooms.
Kidd certainly was grown on the tree that bore Grenville, Drake, Frobisher, Hawkins and the rest, even though it might have been advisable to prune him out. In quite the traditional spirit Kidd hurled his little ship at the great Mocca Fleet as casually as a boy would fling a stone into a flock of sparrows.
It might stimulate the imagination to tell how this extraordinary effort netted big gain, and how the Adventure knocked the merchantmen to left and right and plucked the fattest and richest of them from their midst, from which the captain redeemed his tropical promise to ballast his ship with gold and silver. But that would not be the fact. The difficulties were too great. After a brief peppering on both sides with round shot, the pirates were forced to drop back, and leave the fleet, frightened, fluttering but safe, tumbling on for India.