Pirate tales from the law

by Arthur M. Harris

When he saw me open my eyes he bade me fear nothing, that I was in his house and the people of the place would do me no harm. He said that I might call him Jim.

Jim nursed me like I was a baby; he gave me food and drink; he tried to keep me cool at noon and warm at night, and all without pay, for not one penny piece of my few remaining coins would he take. His was just a heart of good will. And in between whiles he told me the strange story of his life.

He had gone to England from Africa on a British ship a long time before and had made his dwelling in London, particularly in this suburb of Bednal Green, where he turned his hand to one thing and another wherever there was need of a man of strength. At length, being of the mind to go to sea again, he had left England in the ship Rochester—I knew her very well—bound for the Indies.

But off Guinea they fell into a sea fight with a Frenchman, and were very hardly pressed, their enemy having more guns and men than they. Resolving to make a struggle to the finish, the captain of the Rochester—probably to keep his men from fleeing—ordered Jim to cut the longboat adrift from the stern of the ship. Jim went beyond his orders, for after cutting the rope he stayed in the boat and made off with it under cover of the gun smoke.

He had not got a mile away when with a great noise the Rochester blew up, her powder having exploded by accident. He made his way to Guinea and from there, on one ship and another, he had slowly worked his way to this place of Joanna, where he had a mind to settle himself among the native people.

“Why,” said I, “are you so kind to me?”

To this he replied that he had a kindness for plain sailormen; that they suffered much on their ships at the hands of hard masters, and many had, out of their little, often supplied his wants.

For eight weeks black Jim thus cared for me,—a poor, forlorn, marooned seaman, and a sailor’s blessing rests upon him. I owe him my life.

At the end of that time he came one day into the hut and said that a ship was standing in. He had brought my strength up so that I could now walk a little, and I went out into the sunshine and there, sure enough, was a ship,—and it was the ship of Mr. Every. He had evidently come again for water.

Here then was a puzzle for me. Should I go back to him or stay with the good Jim and his people? I am an Englishman and not an African; I would be home again. Jim could not come down to the beach for fear of being taken as a slave, but he and the natives fled back into the island. I bade him good-by with all my heart,—the only friend I was to find in thousands of watery miles.