“I was with the Mediterranean corsairs several years. I visualized before Sidi ben Musa on board a large brigantine that he had just captured with his galleys off the coast of Naples, and I was with him during the rest of his earthly career. He conducted numerous important enterprises. He once organized an expedition to capture the pope that would have been successful were it not for the fact that his men did not know the pope by sight and bundled a cardinal into their boat instead. This happened on the outskirts of the little village of Piano d’Orno not far from Rome. Sidi was one of the great terrors of the sea and wielded a baneful power on the Mediterranean during his lifetime. After he became a shade my association with him beguiled many dull periods.
“After Sidi’s time there was a celebrated sea robber on the Ægean who was called Red Beard. Sidi and I were with him four years. He was thick set and bullet headed. His heavy jutting lips, cruel eyes, and long fiery red whiskers gave him a rough and wild look. He was an excellent and formidable pirate. Wherever there was wealth to loot, involving wholesale massacre, he was always equal to the situation. It was estimated that he and his men killed over three thousand people and captured over four tons of gold during his lifetime. He had a most profitable career, but he finally came to grief and was captured by a war vessel of the Knights of Rhodes. He was rushed down a scuttle into the hold of the Christian ship, where he was subjected to misery and abuse with others of his crew. The ship was fighting its way in the teeth of a howling gale to the lee of some island and it was a wild night on board. The roaring and whistling of the wind, the howls and curses of the prisoners, the creaking of timbers and cordage, and the piercing shrieks of the galley slaves as the knotted thongs bit into their flesh to spur them to greater effort, naturally made conditions extremely unpleasant for those who were alive. The ship finally anchored. Red Beard succeeded in twisting out of his manacles and escaped into the sea. We went with him to the shore about a mile away, where he crept up to a fishing hut and recuperated. In a few days he set out for Egypt in a merchant ship as a common sailor. He became a shade in a brawl in Alexandria and Sidi and I met him soon afterwards. He joined us and we went to my tower for a long rest.
“Red Beard informed us, after he was translated, that during his earthly existence he had led a double life. There were long periods during which his professional activities were suspended. He had a castle on an island in the Ægean Sea where he lived in great splendor and was known as the ‘Freckled Duke of Patmos.’ Nobody there suspected that he was Red Beard the pirate.
“We found Kinisi waiting for us at my tower and we remained there for many years. The place acquired a bad reputation among mortals. Nobody who was alive was allowed to be there more than one night, and after several years visits to it were considered foolhardy and were entirely discontinued. When anybody tried to sleep there Red Beard and Sidi would appear before them and brandish big smoky knives and hop up and down, I would wave long white things in the background, and Kinisi would fly toward them with a rush and suddenly fade. The invaders were never able to stand much of this and would usually jump through the windows into the gully in the rear, so after a while we had peace and privacy there.
“I hope I am not boring you with this long recital, but in order that you may understand and appreciate some points that I intend to bring out later it is necessary to go into all this historical data.”
“You are not boring me at all. On the contrary your story is of the greatest interest,” I replied, “but why did you spend practically all of your time with that swaggering Turk eater and those two pirates when one of your evident talents could have undoubtedly found more respectable society?”
“It does seem funny to you, don’t it? Kinisi and I were special friends in life and naturally the intimacy continued afterwards. As to the pirates, that was just a little fantasy of mine. I always had a penchant for making new acquaintances, and, until lately, I always liked the sea. It happened that, outside of the land wars that were generally going on, the pirates were in those times producing more shades than anybody else, not only from among themselves, but from the sea faring public, and I found that by remaining with them I could constantly mingle with new specters that were congenial. I was stationed at the ‘port of entry’—so to speak, and could select my new associates as my fancy dictated. I consorted with a lot of other pirates in a spiritual way, as you will hear later on. You see my experiences in conducting the affairs of my tower when I was alive naturally predisposed me to association with those of that ilk in my disembodied state.
“I am inclined, if you will pardon me, to resent politely your implication that pirates were not respectable society. The live ones are much thicker now than they were then; they move in the very best circles, and sit at highly polished desks, instead of going out into the storms, fighting and killing clean for what they want. In our days a pirate was a gentleman adventurer, and everybody he hadn’t robbed thought well of him until he was captured and in chains, or killed, just as in the present day a pirate may be a ‘shrewd operator’ and a ‘successful business man’ until they get him, but we shall not discuss the ethics of piracy just now, for I am afraid our time will be exhausted before we get to what I would really like to talk about. With your permission I now return to the little company in my tower.
“For the sake of brevity I shall omit details of our stay there and many important incidents of piratical history with which I and my incorporeal friends were more or less identified. We sojourned for awhile in Algiers and other places along the North African coasts, where the pirate nests were numerous. These financial centers were in a flourishing state of prosperity. The Mediterranean yielded rich harvests to skilfully conducted enterprises at that time, mostly from Spanish sources.
“In 1643, I think it was, we all drifted into the forecastle of a ship that was bound for the West Indies. The Spanish Main was the paradise of the bloody buccaneers, and the home of the far famed ‘Jolly Roger,’ that floated in congenial airs from the masts of sinister looking ships that roved the wide waters and gathered their fruitful spoils. We anticipated a long period of ghostly entertainment.