The pursuers, left behind, at last gave up the chase and returned to port.
Off went the pirate, like a startled gadfly, to Newfoundland. Twenty-two ships were in the harbor. The buccaneers had neither guns nor powder, nothing but fury and knives.
On reaching the port they beat their drums, blew their trumpets, ran up the black flag, and the crews of the twenty-two ships fled to the shore.
The pirates chose the best vessel in the fleet, robbed the others, and set them on fire. The lesson received at Barbadoes still rankled in their souls, they must have flames somewhere. So long as they remembered Barbadoes, not a ship escaped them, and if one from that port fell into their hands they slaughtered even the mice.
Luck changed, Barthelemy's star was in the ascendant, every day brought treasures and victories. The whole sea was his taxpayer. At last he took nothing from the captured ships except coined money; and the crews did not even offer any resistance. With his splendid ship, on whose prow was a carved and gilded figure of Fortuna, he visited every port in turn, levying taxes from the vessels anchored in them. They paid heavily; nay, if rumor could be trusted, safe-conducts could be purchased from him—in advance.
The rulers of all countries forbade their subjects to furnish the pirates with provisions; but that was easily remedied. Ships bound for Africa sailed at regular intervals, laden with provisions, from the English colonies. These met the pirate by a concerted agreement, allowed themselves to be plundered, apparently by force, and yielded up one or two ships' cargoes. The buccaneers paid well for them.
Once the young pirate chief ran into the harbor of St. Barthelemy and went on shore with his whole crew. The inhabitants illuminated their city, the governor came to meet him with a band of music and ordered fireworks in their honor, while the ladies gave them a ball.
The buccaneers knew how to entertain. True, with them dancing was very apt to close with an orgy, and the orgy to end in a brawl; but fair women feared kisses as little as broken heads; for the pirates scattered gold with lavish hands in every direction.
The pirates were gallants; they wore silk garments, gold lace, and plumed hats, the chains of two or three gold watches hung from their pockets, and diamonds and rubies flashed on their fingers. True, the gold lace was perfumed with rum and brandy, the breath of the flatterers reeked with the odor of onions and tobacco, pistols and blood-stained knives were carried in their pockets with the gold watches, and the hands on which diamonds glittered were black with the smoke of powder. But fair women did not shrink from these things, for they knew that the pirates never left a place until the last ring had vanished from their fingers and the last watch from their pockets.