HARBOR OF PIRATES.
"The ships they captured were taken to their settlements by the pirates; and after all the goods in them had been removed, the craft and its cordage would be burnt, to prevent identification. The plunder would be sent to Singapore in the chief's trading-vessels, and sold in the open market; and it often happened that a merchant who had sold goods to a native trader living far to the south was able to buy them back again, in a week or two, at a greatly reduced rate.
"The native crews of the captured ships were taken to some of the interior towns of Sumatra or Borneo, where they were sold as slaves to work on the pepper plantations belonging to the Malays. The pirates generally sailed in fleets of from four up to thirty proas, according to the class of ships they were looking for. Each proa carried from twenty to forty men, and had one or more small guns, in addition to muskets and pistols. Their favorite weapons were the Malay kriss or knife; and they had a supply of darts and other missiles, to be thrown on board their intended prizes.
"They always boarded over the bows, and they rushed on in such numbers that the small crew of a merchant-ship could offer no resistance. Once they met their match at the hands of a woman, and the fame of her stratagem lasts to this day."
"Oh! please tell us about it," said both the boys.
"She was a Quakeress," the Doctor replied; "and you know the Quakers do not believe in fighting.
"She and her husband were passengers on a brig that was becalmed in one of the straits of the Malay Archipelago. A dozen proas came out from a little harbor where there was a pirate settlement, and paddled straight towards the brig. The crew began preparations for defence, and the captain called on the husband of this woman to perform his share of the work. He refused, on the ground that fighting was contrary to his religious principles; and his wife sustained the refusal.
"'But, if he cannot fight,' said she, 'he and I will do something for the general good of all on the ship.'
"She told her husband to bring on deck some dozens of beer bottles that had been emptied of their contents during the voyage. Then, with a hammer, she set to work to break these bottles into small pieces, which were scattered all over the deck. Her husband assisted her, and so did the crew, and, before the proas were along-side, the whole deck, from bow to stern, was covered with the bits of glass.
"The proas came up, and the pirates swarmed in over the bows, after their usual custom. These fellows are half-naked, and always barefooted—the rest of the story will almost tell itself."