“Egad, it’s a pirate,” said the good seaman in despair, as the black flag with the skull and cross-bones fluttered from the rigging of his capturer. “I thought she was a privateersman under Letters of Marque. It’s all up with us.”
As the boat-load of boarders came bobbing alongside he cried out,
“Mercy! Have mercy upon the souls of these poor wretches who sail with me.”
The pirates guffawed, helped themselves to everything of value, and took the merchantmen with them to the coast of Brazil, where the crew were allowed to escape to the shore. The Peterborough was re-christened the Victory and was manned by half of England’s crew, while the other vessel was burned at night; the pirates dancing on the beach to the light of the flames and singing the weird songs of the sea.
Now there was a scene of wild revel upon the Brazilian coast; but the natives grew angry at the conduct of these rough men of the ocean.
“Ugh!” spoke a chief, “we must drive them away, else they will burn our own villages as they did their houses upon the water.”
One peaceful evening the followers of Captain England were hard beset by fully a thousand black-skinned warriors from the Brazilian jungle.
There was a fierce battle. The negroes were pressed back upon their principal town and were driven through it on the run, for their arrows and spears were not as effective as the guns and pistols of the English, Dutch, Spaniards and Portuguese, who had adopted a piratical career. Their thatched huts were set on fire, and, satisfied with the day’s work, the pirates retired to their ships, where a vote was cast where was to be their next venture. It fell to the East Indies and the Island of Madagascar. So they set sail, singing an old ballad which ran,
“Heave the lead and splice th’ topsail,
Tie her down, and let her fill,
We’re agoin’ to Madagascar,
Where th’ little tom-tits trill,
“Bill an’ coo, an’ sing so sweetly,
In th’ dronin’ hours of noon,
That you want to die there, neatly,
Just drop off into ’er swoon.”