Off the Cape of Good Hope they took two Spanish brigantines, in whose company they proceeded, until they ran the Alexander ashore on a small island north of Madagascar, where she stuck fast.
The Captain being sick in bed, the men went ashore on the island and carried off provisions and water to lighten the ship, on board of which none but the Captain, the quartermaster (Howard), and all others were left.
This was too good a chance for the exercise of Howard’s love of treachery. He brought the faster of the two brigantines alongside, tumbled all the treasure into her, scuttled the other, and made off with twenty men and two hundred thousand pounds, leaving the rest of his shipmates to shake their impotent fists and roar maledictions after his diminishing sail.
After rounding the Cape, Howard and his fellows went into a fine harbor on the east side of Madagascar hardly known to European vessels. Here they buried most of the treasure, and for a short time enjoyed the luxury of shore life. Wood and water were abundant, game plentiful, and the waters swarmed with edible fish.
It was pleasant to the pirate, after his long trick afloat, to lie on the yellow sands under the shade of palm and mango and tamarind trees and see the slow surf breaking gently on the beach. In his nostrils was the odor of orange and spice; golden sunbirds and crimson cockatoos nested above him, gaudy butterflies floated about him, and in the shallow waters of the still lagoons were long-legged curlew, busy kingfishers, and wild duck with tenderly shaded plumes. Behind him the tropical jungles blazed gloriously with trees of blooming scarlet and flaring yellow, about which twined gorgeous creepers of dark purple, and from whose leafy depths came the chattering of monkeys and the twittering of innumerable birds. Far off he could hear the smothered thunder of lofty falls, near at hand the plashing of rivulets, and seaward the deep voice of the Indian Ocean. The Malagasy women brought him cooling fruits from the mountains, the hunters came back laden with the flesh of wild cattle and pigs and great, feathery bunches of waterfowl, and the native king sent down to him rice and bananas, maize and manioc, from the rich store of his harvest.
After but a month of this happy shore life they set sail, and running down the coast of Africa met the English ship Prosperous, which they captured by a night attack. The Prosperous was a large, well-found ship of sixteen guns, and well suited to Howard’s purpose, so he transferred his crew and stores to her and sailed to Maritan. They found there a number of shipwrecked pirates, who, with some of the Prosperous’s crew, took on with them, and increased their complement to seventy men.
They next steered for St. Mary’s, where they wooded, watered, and shipped more hands. Here they had an invitation from one Ort van Tyle, a sturdy Dutch trader of social ambition, to attend the christening of two of his children. He received them with hospitality and civility, but they had no sooner entered his house than they began to plunder it, and Van Tyle protesting, they took him prisoner, and designed to hang him, but one of the pirates aided him to escape and he took to the woods. Here he met some of his black; he armed them, and formed an ambush on a scrubby island where the river channel was narrow. The pirates came down in their canoe and Howard’s pinnace, laughing and shouting, bringing with them the booty of the looted house and some captives, whom they set at the paddles. The canoe was overturned in the rapids just as they came abreast of the ambush, and the captives swam ashore and escaped, while the pirates clung to the sides of Howard’s boat. As they drifted by, Van Tyle let drive at them, and in a shower of musket-balls, arrows, and assagais the helpless pirates were swept back to their ships, dismally howling with rage and mortification. In this affair two of Howard’s men were killed, while he was shot through the arm, and two others were seriously wounded.
THE HELPLESS PIRATES WERE SWEPT BACK