The pirate captain was rigged out in the undress uniform of an admiral of the Imperial Russian Navy. The tarnished buttons still displayed the double-headed eagle of the Romanoffs; the salt-stained blue coat was considerably the worse for wear. Burgoyne found himself wondering what had been the fate of the original wearer of the uniform, and by what roundabout way it had come into the possession of Ramon Porfirio.
Pablo Henriques requiring no further introduction, it will be necessary only to portray the third pirate officer, "Black" Fritz Strogoff.
He was short in stature, being only about five feet four inches, and grotesquely broad in proportion to his height. He had hardly any neck, literally speaking, although figuratively he possessed plenty. His features were swarthy, while by a curious contrast his hair was of a light straw colour. In point of age he was the eldest of the three. Although the date of his birth was unknown to him, he was fond of announcing that he entered the University of Dorpat in 1893; so, assuming him to be seventeen or eighteen at that time, he was now about forty-four or forty-five.
He could speak three languages fluently—Russian, German, and Spanish—and had a useful knowledge of English, French, and some of the dialects of Eastern Asia. In the days of the Russian Empire he had experienced the horrors of Siberia. During the war he had played no unimportant part in the intrigue between Soviet Russia and Germany. Not receiving what he deemed to be adequate reward from Lenin and Trotsky, he made his way, via Vladivostok, to one of the South American republics, where he came in contact with Ramon Porfirio.
It was Fritz Strogoff who engineered most of the latter's enterprises. He was the brains of the pirate organization, and while up to the present he was content to let Porfirio take precedence, he was merely awaiting a favourable opportunity of cutting his connection with the Malfilio, taking with him considerably more than the agreed share of the ill-gotten booty. He did not believe in playing too long with Fate.
Ramon Porfirio was literally the tool of his second lieutenant, although, with the arrogance of a Spaniard with a decided dash of Indian blood, he failed utterly to recognize Strogoff's influence. Of an imaginative, reckless, and hot-tempered disposition, he firmly believed that he was a leader of men, and a worthy successor to Morgan, Mansfield, and other famous buccaneers.
Beginning his career as a small public official at Lima, Porfirio soon found that existence was far too tame. He absconded, taking 20,000 dollars of public money, and found a temporary refuge in Chile. At Talcahuano he came in touch with German agents, who were at that time busily engaged in picking up news in order to keep von Spee informed of the movements of Craddock's squadron. At that time there was hardly such a thing as British propaganda, and Porfirio, through his German associates, was well primed with utterly erroneous ideas of the might of Britain's sea-power.
It was to the Huns at Talcahuano that he owed the thought of becoming a sea-corsair, and preying upon unprotected British shipping. The idea grew and took tangible form. After acquiring a smattering of the arts of seamanship and navigation, he felt confident enough to embark upon his career of piracy, but the difficulty was to find a vessel suitable to his pocket and his needs.
About this time he met Strogoff. Hinting at his ambition and his difficulties, Porfirio found, as he thought, a kindred spirit. Strogoff suggested that the Kamtchatkan port of Petropavlovsk would furnish the necessary vessel. It was about that time that Siberia succumbed to Bolshevism, and several Russian light cruisers and gunboats were lying at Petropavlovsk. Since it was hopeless for them to return either to the Black Sea or the Gulf of Finland, it was more than likely that an armed vessel might be acquired at a reasonable price.
Incidentally Strogoff mentioned that he knew of a secret naval base, situated in a remote island in the North Pacific. It had been prepared some years before the Great War for the use of the German squadron stationed in these waters, so that when "der Tag" dawned the Hun commerce-destroyers would have a base to operate from should Kiao-Chau prove useless—as it quickly did—to the squadron.