I have had “Foods America Gave the World” on my desk for six months now. It is one of Verrill’s vintage nonfiction reads – it is a classic American. For some reason I have never found another book like this, a description of the history of all foods American (see FoodsIntroIndex for the Table of contents and introduction). I have never understood why Google, etc. had not digitized the book – they have digitized over a dozen of his other books. He wrote “Foods . . .” in collaboration with Otis W. Barrett a trained botanist and horticulturalist who was the Agricultural Director in Puerto Rico. Barrett also wrote, so I picked up “Tropical Crops” which he penned in 1928. I have browsed the book and after a bit I started to compare the chapters on Chocolate or cacao, or cocoa.
In 2008, Gail and I visited Central America for most of a month. Nearing the end of the trip, in Copan, Honduras, we saw our first Cocoa (chocolate) tree, complete with a pod of chocolate seeds. It is a long way from these pods to some of the chocolates we see now. That is what the three blogged titles below explain. I apologize for the clarity of the video, it’s old, and it’s 15 minutes long, but it does a great job in explaining the chocolate process.
From Foods America Gave the World 1937 by A. Hyatt Verrill Digitized by Doug Frizzle October 2009
CHAPTER IX THE STORY OF CHOCOLATE WHEN Hernando Cortez and his little army of Spaniards were conquering Mexico they found the Aztecs using a strange beverage which they called cacaoquahitl made from the seeds of a tree. They also had another, even richer drink, as well as confections, made from the same seeds which was known as chocolatl. As the Aztec words were far too difficult for the Spaniards to pronounce they changed them to cacao and chocolate and so they have been known ever since. So highly esteemed was cacao that in many parts of Mexico the seeds were used as money, and the beverages were so costly that only royalty and the members of the nobility could afford to use cacao and chocolate. The Emperor Montezuma was inordinately fond of the clear unsweetened cacao drink. Bernal Diaz who was a member of Cortez's army and who wrote a wonderful account of the conquest entitled La Verdad Historia de la Conquista de Nueva Espana or The True History of the Conquest of New Spain, states that Montezuma drank at least fifty cupfuls of cacao each day while his household consumed two thousand more. At first the Spaniards did not like the cacao which was made from the dried and roasted seeds boiled in water like coffee, but they took kindly to the thicker chocolate sweetened with honey and flavored with spices and vanilla. They discovered, however, that the cacao was a most nutritious beverage and very refreshing, relieving fatigue and "pepping" them up, and very soon they were drinking it almost as liberally as the Aztecs. A few years after Cortez had conquered Mexico and had destroyed the Aztec Empire, Francisco Pizarro set forth to conquer the great Incan Empire in Peru, and there in South America, he found the Incan people using the same cacao and chocolate that Cortez had found in use among the Aztecs in Mexico. The Incans called the seeds and the drink made from them cacahua which was far nearer the Spaniards' cacao than was the Aztecs' cacaoquahitl. In Peru the seeds were not used as money, partly because there was no form of money in the communistic Incan Empire, and partly because the beanlike seeds were far more common and less valuable than in Mexico, so that even the common people of the highlands and interior towns used both cacao and chocolate freely (Fig. 1, chocolate cup from pre-Incan tomb at Nasca, Peru, showing a man holding cacao pods). In all probability it never occurred to the Spaniards that it was rather remarkable that both the Aztecs and the Incans should have such similar names for the seeds which both races prepared and used in the same ways. But even if it did strike some of them as a bit strange, the Dons were far too busy robbing the Incans of their treasures, and enslaving and slaughtering the people, to bother about such matters as edible and drinkable food plants. Perhaps, even had they asked about the cacao and the Incans' traditions of its origin and history, they would have learned nothing of value; but on the other hand, at that time the Peruvian people may have possessed a real knowledge of the origin of cacao and many others of their cultivated plants. If so, that knowledge was forever lost to the world, and we of today cannot be at all certain whether the Peruvian or the Mexican or the Central American races were the first to cultivate and use cacao. But as the only wild cacao trees which might be the direct ancestors of the cultivated species, are found in the Guianas and northern South America adjacent to the old Incan and pre-Incan territory, it would seem probable that cacao was still another of the important American foods which the Peruvian Indians gave the world and that from Peru the seeds were carried northward into Central America and Mexico. No doubt you wonder why it is that if the real name of the seeds and the beverage is cacao, we usually speak of "cocoa". But it is just another example of the Anglo-Saxons' strange habit of transposing letters and twisting foreign names about. For some inexplicable reason the early British voyagers and traders changed cacao to cocoa and then to scramble names still more, changed the Spaniards' coco, their name for the coconut, to cocoa-nut while to make matters still more confusing there is the plant called coca from which the cocaine is obtained. Although today the term cocoa should be applied only to the prepared and ground seeds and the beverage made from them, the planters in the British West Indies always call their cacao groves cocoa walks. As Dr. Barrett so aptly puts it, the Trinidad merchant sells "coker-nuts" and cacao and buys Venezuelan cocos and local cocoa beans. But after all what's in a name? Regardless of whether we call them by their correct name of cacao or by the Britishers' version, cocoa, the preparation of the seeds or beans is a most interesting process. To a person who has never before seen a cacao tree in fruit it is a most remarkable sight, for the tiny pinkish flowers sprout directly from the bark of the trunk and limbs and form great rough red, green, yellow or purple fruits or pods covering the branches and main trunk of the tree (Fig. 2 and Frontispiece). As one northerner remarked when he first saw cacao trees, "they look like small beech trees with squashes hung on the trunks". Unlike squashes, however, the fruits or pods are not edible, but are filled with a whitish, sweet, slimy mucilaginous material enclosing numerous large seeds or "beans", which are fairly soft and are pinkish or purplish in color (Fig. 3). The pods are gathered as fast as they ripen and are opened on the spot, being cut transversely in half with a blow of a machete, the slimy contents and seeds being emptied into boxes or trays to be carried to the fermentation sheds. The process of fermentation or "sweating" is essential and much of the quality of the "beans" of commerce depends upon it, for if not sweated sufficiently they will have the flavor of raw potatoes and are liable to deteriorate or mildew, while if over fermented they may be completely ruined. Although there are various methods of fermenting the beans, some growers dumping the slimy mass containing the seeds into bins or vats, others placing the contents of the pods on wooden gratings, while the owners of small groves of trees are often content to use empty kerosene-tin cases or to cover the seeds with leaves, yet the result is the same. In a few days the thick slimy pulp sours and ferments and runs off in a semi-fluid state so that the seeds or beans are easily separated from it. Planters disagree as to whether it is preferable to wash the beans before drying them or to place them on the drying trays without washing, and both methods are followed. In order to dry the beans equally and thoroughly they must constantly be raked over and protected from rain, and while the larger estates are provided with huge drying trays equipped with tracks and wheels so they may quickly be run under a shed in case of a shower, and at night, while others use artificial heat for drying, there are many thousands of tons of cacao beans dried on small trays or even on cowhides spread upon the ground, often on the sidewalks or streets of the villages and towns. It is a common sight to see hundreds of trays and hides covered with cacao beans drying in the sunshine by the roadside and with sheep, dogs, fowls and other live-stock walking over them. But as in the preparation of the beans for cocoa the outer skin or shell is removed, this unhygienic condition of affairs need not trouble one, even though the final treatment or "polishing" of the beans is accomplished by having barefooted negroes, Hindus or Indians tread and shuffle the beans about with their feet. Very often red clay mixed with water is sprinkled over the beans during the "dancing" process. This imparts a fine color and polish to the beans and also protects them from mold and mildew. When at last the beans have been properly cured they are packed for shipment in sacks containing two hundred pounds each. At the factories the beans are graded and selected, for cacao beans from various places are as different in flavor and qualities as are coffee beans and a definite proportion of each must be blended to insure uniform results. The first step in the process of manufacture is roasting, after which the beans are de-hulled by machinery and pass to the "nibber" machine which breaks them into various sized pieces and at the same time removes the germ, or "chit" as it is called, of each bean. They are then screened or sifted and the various beans blended, after which they are run through the grinders whence they issue in a thick creamy paste known as "liquor". This liquor is then placed in the "conching" cylinder where it is beaten and churned for several hours to produce a smooth cacao cream. While still warm this is run into molds to form cakes which we know as chocolate. By removing the fatty oils or "cocoa butter" from the chocolate and pulverizing the remainder, cocoa is prepared, while the husks when pulverized are known as broma. Formerly, large quantities of the unground cocoa shells were sold and were used as a cheap substitute for cocoa, but nowadays good cocoa and chocolate are so cheap that there is little demand for the shells and most of them are used in making cattle feed. Of course the old Aztecs and Incas did not put their cacao beans through this long process. Their only machines were mortars and grinding stones, but with these primitive utensils they accomplished nearly the same results as we accomplish with all our expensive and wonderfully designed machinery. To be sure, the Indians' hand-prepared chocolate is not so fine in texture as that we manufacture and their beverage is usually filled with bits of the broken seeds which have escaped being pulverized in the stone or wooden mortars. But the taste is much the same—oftentimes better—than the products of our factories and is just as nourishing and as stimulating. It may seem strange to speak of cocoa and chocolate as stimulants, but as a matter of fact they are far more stimulating than coffee, for cacao contains twice as much stimulant, in the form of theobromine, as most coffees have in the form of the similar caffein. But did anyone ever hear of cocoa being accused of keeping people awake? Yet many, I might say most, persons believe that coffee taken at night will cause sleeplessness, and they blame the caffein it contains for keeping them awake, although they drink cocoa or chocolate with the idea that it will induce restful sleep. In fact there are certain brands of coffees which are widely advertised and sold because, so it is claimed, the greater portion of the caffein has been removed and they will not cause insomnia. But I do not think any manufacturer has ever thought of increasing the sales of cocoa or chocolate by announcing that the theobromine has been taken from them. Strange, is it not? Both cocoa and chocolate are far more widely used than most persons realize, over three hundred million people consuming over half a million tons of cacao beans every year, and although the cacao tree is a truly American plant, more than half the world's cacao crop is produced in Africa. Next to coffee and tea, cocoa is the world's most popular food beverage, but there are millions of persons who prefer still other vegetable drinks which are almost unknown to us, and two of the most important of these, described in the next chapter, are strictly American.
From The Tropical Crops by Otis Warren Barrett, B.Sc. 1928
CHAPTER V CACAO CACAO is in a class by itself as it is both a beverage and food crop. Coffee should be in the same category, but is not. Tea is virtually and financially twice as important as cacao, but in commerce and industry the reverse is true. Coffee is between three and four times heavier in trade and six or eight times more valuable. Coffee costs by the pound, production-center price, about twice as much as cacao, and tea between two and three times as much, depending on where the value is calculated. Yet this cheaper commodity has not only about the same stimulating power as these two other beverages but in addition is a very nutritious food. The industrial world is fortunate in obtaining cacao so cheaply. Were it not for the disconcerting but comprehensible fact that in a single African colony native growers are today producing over half of the world's crop at about half the production cost a pound in other countries, the buyers would be paying not around ten cents (on an average) but probably over twenty cents a pound for the raw bean. Cacao is one of the most interesting strictly tropical export crops. If its "butter," or fat, were a little more readily digestible, it would excel, perhaps, both coffee and tea. Chemists are obviating this negative feature by taking out the heavy fat and substituting one or more lighter ones—just as the factory manager covers up the bitter taste with sugar. Three or four species of Theobroma produce Cacao seeds; the sixteen or eighteen others are not used. All are tropical American in origin. Authorities differ as to whether they are all cultigens. The family Sterculiaces has about 750 species; it is related to the Tea Family. About 98 per cent of the crop is produced by T. Cacao. T. pentagona is cultivated in Nicaragua and adjoining republics. T. speciosa and T. angustifolia are unimportant. Of T. Cacao there are some twelve or fifteen distinct types, distinguishable largely by their fruits. These may be yellow or reddish, long or roundish, small or large, bottle-necked, ridged, smooth, and the seeds also differ in color and flavor. Cacao is an ordinary-appearing tree, 15 to 25 feet high, with thin, fairly large leaves. The striking peculiarity is its habit of producing the very small pinkish flowers and fruits in clusters, on "buttons" on the trunk and larger branches; in fact, the fruits are so closely attached to these buttons that their removal without injury to the bark requires trained pickers. The beautiful pods, as the fruits are called, ripen at all seasons, though there is usually one large harvest and several minor pickings in the year. Inside the thick granular-woody shell there is a scanty white pulp, sweet and well flavored and cool tasting, and large irregular-shaped flattened seeds, twenty to forty or more, somewhat like large plump lima beans, of a beautiful lilac-purple shade inside, sometimes pink. Cacao probably occurs in the wild state in the jungles of northern South America; at least very close relatives of it have been discovered there. Centuries before Colon (Columbus) came over searching for pepper and cinnamon at fifty dollars a pound, this denizen of the coastal rain forests had traveled perhaps from the Orinoco around up to the "Tierra Caliente" of eastern Mexico. The seeds dried and roasted and steeped, with or without other substances, like the seeds of the Ceiba tree, were consumed as a food-drink by the upper classes. Small bags of the seeds were used as money. Without milk and sugar, bitter and gritty, the Emperor Montezuma quaffed fifty mugfuls a day and gave 2,000 more to his household because, besides the nutritious fat, starch, and proteids, they got a 2 per cent caffein stimulus out of the theobromine. Most coffee has only about half as much of the similar alkaloid, caffein. The Aztecs, who were unquestionably the first to use cacao largely, named it "cacaoquahuitl." The Spaniards, having little respect in those days for aboriginal words, dropped the latter half. The British later transposed the letters. Chocolate, the preparation of the ground seeds, was called by the Aztecs "chocolatl." The Spaniards were in that case content with substituting an "e" for the final "1"; and the English lexicographers divided it into three syllables and set the accent back on the first. The British grower insists on calling his cacao orchard a "cocoa walk." But correctly speaking cocoa is the flour left after taking most of the fat out of the ground seed, or chocolate. The Spanish for coconut is "coco"; hence to avoid confusion in trade parlance, the Trinidad merchant sells "cokernuts" and cacao and buys Venezuelan cocos, and also local cocoas.
ECONOMIC STATUS OP CACAO Few realize that cacao has recently been climbing to a very prominent place in the world's commerce. It is nearly half as large as coffee, over 500,000 tons. Since the perilous slump in price of the raw bean on account of the vast output of very cheap-grown stuff in the Gold Coast, the confectioners have profited: cynically speaking, 10-cent chocolate plus 5-cent sugar equals 80-cent candy. If 3 pounds of 10-cent cacao are put through the mill, resulting in 2 pounds of cocoa powder worth, say 15 or 20 cents, and 1 pound of cocoa butter (the yellowish at first, then white, fragrant rich vegetable tallow taken out of the hot ground semi-solid paste) worth, say 25 cents, there will be a gross profit of 35 per cent to 50 per cent for the factory. The United States now imports about 425,000,000 pounds of cacao, or between three-sevenths and a half of the total production. The consumption in the confectionery trade is enormous and is increasing. All grades are used, but about 35 per cent comes from British West Africa, which produces about 225,000 tons, nearly half of the world's supply. Brazil is producing heavily the past few years (since 1922) and has held rank as the second cacao country since the Great War. Ecuador is in danger of losing her place, in fact Nigeria is surpassing her already, and no one knows what Lagos will do later. Colombia and Venezuela could easily double their output. Trinidad and Sao Thome, old rivals, keep an even status, 18,000 to 30,000 tons. Costa Rica, Santo Domingo, and Nicaragua should expand, for they have ideal cacao climate and soil. Cacao, as a food-drink, is not sufficiently appreciated. It is much more stimulating than coffee, ounce for ounce, and a good rich food; the butter is indigestible if taken in large amounts. Plenty of vanilla and cinnamon is needed to spice up cocoa and chocolate as a beverage; the semi-solid preparation is made from the powder—not too poor in oil—boiled thoroughly in as small a quantity of water as possible, then a little cream, spice, and plenty of sugar.
CULTIVATION OF CACAO Cacao likes heat and humidity better perhaps than any other crop; i.e., it is a typical megatherm. Droughts it cannot well endure, nor elevations above 2,500 feet. It revels in red clay, probably because it holds moisture so well; but if this clay cracks under the strain of a long dry spell with no (almost indispensable) blanket of leaves, the roots suffer severely. Rich deep loamy alluvium along river banks is best, provided the valley is not exposed too much to the wind; or up along winding streams back into the hills if the slopes are not too rocky. Forking is a common practice in most tropical American cacao orchards. The old method was very destructive to the roots, though it did, of course, aerate the heavy soils. In Trinidad in 1907 a laborer was ordered to fetch a spade and demonstrate to the writer the then current style of forking: he came with the spade, but said he could not proceed till he had a cutlass to chop the roots. Consequently, the writer devised the vertical forking method: a short-handled fork with strong straight prongs is thrust (by hand and foot) vertically into the earth, not too close to the trunk base; the handle is then moved backward and forward till the tines are loosened in the soil, then taken out. These tine holes let the air down 6 or 8 inches beneath the surface, no roots are broken—no "chopping" is necessary —and these enlarged tine holes fill gradually with fine surface silt and humus particles, held right where the feeding roots can utilize them. Twenty to forty vertical thrusts in the root radius of a medium-sized tree allow the roots to get their due supply of air, even in heavy clay soils. Deep drains are necessary wherever the least trace of stagnant water might be suspected. Cacao is a noble crop and will not endure the slights and lack of attention so commonly shown coffee and coconuts. In Trinidad the old creole planters have a wise adage, to wit: "Old Mis' Cocoa, she likes 'e soun' o' de human voice"; and, true enough, within ear-shot of the hut the trees bear twice as much as those receiving less attention. Seed should be taken, of course, from the best parent trees, those which always carry a good number of pods, and which produce good plump beans of the correct color and flavor. This is not so easy as it sounds, but cacao planters are ahead of coffee growers in starting their seed selection right. Seeds may be planted "at stake" or in beds in a regular nursery or in bamboo pots or palm-leaf baskets. Under favorable conditions, i.e., where there is shade and plenty of rain, two or three seeds may be planted in the hill, the most vigorous one to be left in situ in due course. In starting a new grove, however, where the young seedling has to meet sun, wind, and weeds, perhaps, there is better chance of success if it goes out into the open-space dangers well prepared to win out. In the writer's experience the bamboo-joint, one seed to the pot, is the best method; germination is better, and the seedlings can be kept in the pots till they show six or eight leaves, but by that time the tap-root is creeping out of the hole in the septum at the bottom of the joint. When taken to the hole, which should have been dug deep and wide and nearly filled with surface soil, weeks before the transplanting, the pot is thrust down into the loose soil, then with a hatchet or short machete one side is split off carefully and lifted out, earth is pressed up against the exposed soil cylinder still intact in the remaining half of the pot which is then left, erect and solid-set. The holes may be 10 x 10 feet on slopes but in rich soil 12 x 12 or 12 x 15 feet is better. This means 300 down to 240 to the acre. Shade is nearly always necessary. Cacao is by nature a jungle denizen and dislikes wind; in fact, strong winds at the time the flushes of tender new leaves occur at the tips of the branches may whip them to pieces in a few hours. Too much shade, however, conduces to fungous attacks of all kinds and thus to low yield. Several species of Erythrina, called Dadaps in the Orient and Bocares in the American tropics, are the favorite shade-producers. They have one exasperating fault: whenever their shade is most needed, during a long drought, they always shed every leaf, letting the sun down to the ground, cracking open the red clay and torturing the cacao roots. To make the trunk branch out at the height of 3 feet, three or four main branches preferred, a little cautious pruning may be necessary the second year after transplanting (or planting at stake). Thereafter pruning is a fine art in the cacao grove. Not only must the tree be kept balanced and open but the two sorts of vertical sprouts must be removed promptly, twice or thrice a year gone over by an expert with experience, a very sharp knife, saw, and paint-pot. One of these suckers has plenty of leaves and may be left to form a new trunk if the old one develops canker; the other water-sprout will shoot up 4 to 5 feet in a few months, with hardly any leaves, and will distract the tree's attention from fruit production unless promptly removed. The proper removal of cacao side-shoots is a very difficult pruning operation. They should be taken off carefully, close up to the parent trunk, without injuring the bark, and with the application of some thick bland paint or wound wax to promote quick healing-over of the scar.
HARVESTING CACAO PODS (PLATE IV) The fourth or fifth year there should be a number of fruits. If any set the third year they should be removed to avoid lowering the young tree's vigor. From the fourth to the fortieth year the tree should bear two crops, one long and heavy and one a few months afterward more irregular and uncertain. A fruit cushion, or button, may produce four or even six pods almost simultaneously, so that their bases, crowded together on their one-inch peduncles, become squeezed out of shape. Cacao, when free from fungous pests, is almost too prolific. Since by the tenth year some of the pods may be borne too high for the pickers to reach with the cutlass or shorter knife, there is on most estates a pole-picker—a triangular blade mounted on a handle 6 to 9 feet long. Some of these blades have on one side a down-curving prong with cutting edge, so that a downward pull will sever a pod on the upper side of a high cushion. Most pods are removed by upward jabs of the pole-knife, and probably one-third of these jabs cut into the bark of the cushion or wood near thereto. Knives nearly always carry germs of the black-pod rot (Phytophthora jaberi), and therefore every cut is an inoculation. A tarred rag, wrapped around the base of the blade, touched to the bark wound would prevent most of the trouble. The pods drop to the ground. Unless weeds are unusually bad, the gatherers never miss a pod, red or yellow. To save bending over, a favorite trick of the gatherer is to thrust the point of the cutlass into the pod, then with a quick swing and recoil the pod is hurled 10 or 15 yards away to a pile which is later broken in situ, perhaps, or packed down by burro or mule (purposely bred very small to pass under the branches easily) to a general breaking ground. Cacao picking is interesting work, requiring much more intelligence than coffee picking. The cacao pod shows certain indications of its maturity to those who know, but these signs can hardly be put into words and even the most intelligent experienced pickers cut many a pod that lacks a week or two of being fully ripe. Five to fifteen pods a tree at a picking is probably a fair average. Many fine old trees, 8 to 12 inches in diameter and 15 to 25 feet high, give less, while a vigorous young tree may yield twenty-five to seventy-five beautiful purple and orange fruits at one cut. About twenty pods are required to make a pound of dry seeds. From 300 to 500 pounds to the acre is the outturn: the average probably runs around 425 pounds. The breaking is always an interesting task. Usually heaps of a few thousand pods, here and there near paths, are made in the shade. Two sharp short blows of the machete or heavy knife by an expert, three or four by the regular peon, breaks the semi-woody shell around its equator, disclosing the white pink-streaked mass of pulp and seeds, which is tossed in a pile for the women strippers. A good breaker will handle 500 or so pods an hour; but only a specially trained wrist can hold out all day without cutting either fingers or seeds. Stripping the seeds from the placental strings running lengthwise of the seed-pulp cylinder looks simple, but is a difficult operation. The seeds in their delicious but scanty ice-cream-like pulp are shoveled into sacks, pannier baskets, or head baskets, and sent down to the fermenting boxes. The empty half-shells are left to rot usually right where they were broken. In a year the crumbled black mass may be flung about under the near-by trees to help out the blanket. A liberal dusting of lime over the heap, occasionally, hastens decay and lessens the number of mosquito larvae in the up-turned shell halves.
CACAO FERMENTATION AND PREPARATION When the seeds arrive at the "sweating room," the process is no longer agricultural but chemical. Much training and clear judgment is required in cacao fermentation. Much has been written regarding the proper temperature, size of bin or box, manner of mixing, duration, exposure to the air, but as no two batches are alike, no rules can be laid down. The smell of the almost hot (100° to 125° F.) pulp, the way the vinegary claret-like liquor flows out at the bottom of the (cubic yard more or less) box, the color of the seed-coats, the texture of the slippery beans, have to be learned very slowly. After two or three, possibly four days, when the seeds have been mixed several times to mingle the cooler beans near the outside of the box with those getting too hot near the center, the batch, weighing a quarter of a ton, is taken to the drying trays or perhaps to the perforated floor of a dry-house, or possibly, if the weather is wet and the estate well outfitted, to a dehydrator. Sometimes the seeds are washed when leaving the sweating house. If so, they present a cleaner appearance, but most growers believe that washed beans are weaker. In some estates in Venezuela the seeds are fermented in pits in the ground. Yeast germs, bacteria, and enzymes find the fermenting boxes a veritable paradise. The lees liquor is run off into a seep-tank or into a near-by stream. It might be utilized as a weak vinegar if filtered and clarified. The tight seed-coat of the cacao bean is not so easily handled as the loose parchment endocarp of the coffee drupelet. Moreover, the cacao seed is four to six times heavier than the coffee. If the weather happens to be cloudy, no amount of raking over, turning, stirring, on the huge trays can prevent molds from attacking the sticky surfaces of the seeds, and unless some form of artificial heat is available the batch may sour. However, if dried too fast at first the thin brownish-yellow or reddish hull may crack open exposing the purplish seed itself, which would certainly affect the price if not the flavor. A hundredweight of fresh beans gives about 47 pounds in the bag; 100 pounds of fresh pods turns out only 25 pounds of dry seed. After some days of anxious attention, however, the beans begin to give the faint susurrant or murmuring sound which delights the tray gang. Every night and during every shower the big trays must be rolled in under a shed or a roof must be rolled over them; even dew would spoil them. In some countries the beans are "danced" when nearly dry. They are made up into a flat-topped heap, a foot deep by 6 feet in diameter, sprinkled with powdered fine red clay and then with a little water, trodden by four or five barefooted laborers, walking around and around on the heap, while two or three shovelers at the rim keep the pile from getting too shallow. After ten minutes or so every bean in the heap is glazed with a thin film of clay which protects the seed from molds between tray and chocolate factory. There is much variation in the thickness of this hull: a thin membrane over the Ceylon and Java seeds, and a tough coat on the tropical American. Cacao goes into larger sacks than coffee, for no apparent reason: 200 pounds vs. 125 to 150. Unlike coffee it does not carry very well over long routes and great care must be exercised to avoid danger of mustiness or even dampness in the warehouses. During the World War many thousands of tons accumulated in the Accrá warehouses (Gold Coast), overflowed, grew stale and finally a vast quantity of this third-class stuff was offered gratis, it is said, to any and all ship's captains who needed ballast on the home run; and scarcely a pound was wasted after all, they say. Arrived finally at the factory, the beans are carefully tested, no two lots being just the same, and a blend formula worked out: so many Accrá sacks for bulk, so many Arribas from Ecuador and perhaps a little high-class Granada, which ought to make a very fair grade liquor for the candy manufacturer. Liquor, of course, is the solid ground bean, usually run, while warm and therefore semi-solid, into cakes about 15 x 25 x 2½ inches. After a slight roast, in order to toast the skin up brittle and to bring out the delightful aroma, not nearly so strong a bake as is given to coffee, the beans are de-hulled in one machine and sent on to the nibber which breaks them into coarse and fine pieces and removes the "chit," or embryo. These nibs, or broken seeds, may be winnowed and screened out into several grades. Then the different sorts, from several countries probably, are mixed and conveyed on belts or from spouts to the hoppers of the grinders. It is a strange sight to see the warm dry rattling nibs go into the open mouth in the center of the top stone, and run out a creamy paste at the outer rim. If the ordinary liquor, which is well ground and finished, is taken to the conching cylinder and submitted to several hours furious beating by the relentless piston, back and forth rapidly, the result is a smooth mellow cream of distinct flavor and of higher price. The bean is marketed as cocoa powder and cocoa-butter or as some form of bitter or sweet chocolate. The shells or hulls, however, are used for stock feed. The amount of clay adherent to the hulls is seldom or never sufficient to damage their value as a cattle-feed ingredient. Cocoa shells may still be obtained, cleaned, in packages for human consumption; formerly they came in sacks, cheap and popular. The shells or seed-hulls contain about 11 per cent fat, while the "dust" (embryo chits and particles of the seed) may have around 28.5 per cent, too rich for stock feed.
VARIETIES OF CACAO Probably 98 per cent of world's cacao is produced by the fifteen or twenty varieties of Theobroma Cacao. In Central America, especially in Nicaragua, and to a very slight extent on some estates elsewhere, there is cultivated a weakish but rather high-quality species, T. pentagona. This is sometimes mentioned as the "Alligator" cacao, a name which should be dropped, since it leads to confusion with the patashte (Theobroma or Tribroma bicolor). The varieties of the common species may be grouped under three types, the Forasteros, the Criollos, and the Calabacillos. Of these the Forasteros turn out at least ninety pounds in every quintal marketed, while the Criollos are probably a little ahead of the "poor little squashes", to translate Calabacillos literally. Of the variations of color of pod, color of seed, shape and size of pod, there is almost no end. According to some cacao specialists, the pinching-in of the basal portion of the fruit indicates that the type is not pure. The commonest form of the Forastero type is a purple-red fruit with only slight ridges, the tip moderately rounded, and the base with not more than a suspicion of a bottleneck. The seed should be slightly angled, plump, and of a pale purple or lilac shade inside. Yellows, in most tropical American plantations, are not common. They seem less resistant to disease, but there is a feeling that their beans have a better flavor, though no expert could pick out with certainty these beans from a basket of stripped seeds at the breaking heap. Some forms of Forastero pods are covered with a network of deep longitudinal corrugations and shallow crosswise warty wrinkles. Rarely the entire surface is smooth even at the base. Quite often considerable yellow color shows in the depressions between the red ridges, but practically never is a pod really two-colored. The famous old Criollo type is much commoner in Venezuela than elsewhere. "Criollo" means native-born, and "Forastero" is the Spanish adaptation of the Portuguese word forasteiro, meaning foreigner. The Criollo pod is much more slender and more ridgy than the Forastero and is usually yellowish. The base of the pod is more or less prolonged into a bottle-neck and the tip is rather acute, never rounded. The seed is flatter, longer, and light-colored. The flavor of the well-fermented seed is unquestionably better in some hardly explainable way, and is less bitter, but it may lack body, as the coffee blenders say. The Criollos usually are shy bearers and weak growers. The Calabacillo has a pod about one-half the size of the Forastero, very short, with a small sharpish tip and practically no ridges at all. The color is almost always dark purplish-red. The bean is small and very bitter. The reason for planting this inferior variety here and there throughout the plantation is because the pickers can always obtain a few pods, whether rainy or dry season, pod-rots and canker or no, from these vigorous but smaller-growing trees. The Nicaraguan T. pentagona is undeniably a high-grade cacao but there are cases in which canker has wiped out whole plantations. The pod is hardly medium-sized, mostly yellow, strongly five-ridged. The patashte (T. bicolor) does not resemble the true cacao at all. It makes a tree 30 to 50 feet high, straight and slender. The leaves are large and rounder. The fruit is a striking object: oval or oblong, twice the weight of a Forastero, covered with a dark olive skin, with sharp-edged ridges, the larger running lengthwise. The shell is woody or almost like pottery. The seeds are large, flattened and rounded in a scanty pulp. The natives of Central America employ these seeds in making "dulces" but they are never used like true cacao.
PESTS AND DISEASES OF CACAO There are six fungous diseases which seriously affect the price of chocolate, besides about twenty species which in certain places may sometimes attack root, stem, leaf, or fruit. Of insect enemies cacao has perhaps fewer than any of the other major crops of the tropics. Deer, squirrels, and monkeys spoil a few ripe pods now and then. In Trinidad and northern South America the agouti (a brown-meated rodent the size of a rabbit) and the closely related paca (the meat of which resembles chicken breast) are blamed for the loss of a small percentage of the fruits borne low on the trunk. Pilfering by the human biped, in groves near settlements, is quite serious in many countries. The terrible black pod-rot, Phytophthora faberi, is the worst pest in all cacao groves. In fact it is debatable whether tropical planters have a worse fungous enemy, since this species not only destroys at least 15 per cent of the world's cacao crop, but has long been killing coconuts by the thousand in nearly all the grove regions in both hemispheres, and lately has begun to attack the soft-barked hevea, increasing the cost of automobile tires. It works in two guises: The most noticeable is the attack on the fruits, from one-half inch in length to full maturity; and canker of the bark. Opinions differ as to which form is the more important. A minute white spore sprouting on the surface of a pod—of any size at any season, or of any variety—finds a pore in the skin. The hyphae, or white thread-like roots, burrow rapidly into the cells and in two or three days (for a young fruit just starting) or a week or so the whole tissue of the shell is rotten, a brown spot at first, enlarging apace and finally turning black. The pulp and seeds are not attacked till after the shell has been destroyed. Mature fruits even badly affected may contain healthy seeds but they are consigned to the heap of rodent-gnawed pods and under-ripes, second-class product which may go in with a half-musty batch, 1 per cent of the total output, perhaps. The small fruits, killed by this insidious pest, dry up, hang, black and hard for weeks perhaps, and drop off. Of course, the optimist may say that the tree could not carry all its set fruits through to maturity, hence the fungus might as well thin them down. It is a marvel that flowers can come out of any cushion which has had a pod killed on it. When the rot finishes the pod it creeps up the peduncle into the soft thick bark covering the button. In three days after a spore has entered, a cancerous area of brown decayed tissue—canker—is beginning to spread around the point of inoculation; and unless the tree is in good health a large area of bark may be killed, a branch or even the trunk may be girdled. Although in most groves, 70 per cent or more of the cushions have been invaded, one time or another, by their greedy enemy, a very large proportion of them block the spread of the hyphae in some manner. Sometimes the canker, starting probably from several jab wounds made by the picker's hook, spreads rapidly and once the sap supply is cut off by a ring of infection that part of the tree above or beyond it is gone. The brown pod-rot, Diplodia cacaoicola, is serious, but is not to the same extent as Phytophthora. It also may cause the terrible canker areas on the stem and larger branches. The comparatively new water-pod disease, Monilia sp., of Ecuador is rather serious. Once the fungus gains entrance into a fruit the seeds are doomed to destruction. The witches'-broom, Marasmius perniciosus, of Surinam has for twenty-five years or more caused very serious losses. Similar fungi on tea and coffee cause a peculiar bundling of abnormal branches which, of course, bear no fruit. Various fungi invade the root system. In rich soil one can almost always find long white threads of fungus hyphae running along the cacao roots as if looking for a chance to break in. Species of Fomes have learned how to get through the bark cuticle, and the finest trees will wilt and die as if struck by lightning. Thread blights, Marasmius spp., are not important, except in a newly planted grove, with rotting stumps and plenty of rain. They kill a few leaves, and hold them suspended by the threads. Lichens do no harm to the trunk, but like mosses and ferns are unsightly. Bromeliads, or "wild pines", and all epiphytic growths should be pushed off with a forked stick once or twice a year. In very wet situations it may be necessary to brush the trunks occasionally. The papery cacao leaf is not easily invaded by fungi, but the bark and fruits are good hunting grounds for parasites. Plant-lice, Aphis spp., and scales often infest the flowers, peduncles, and young fruits. Boring beetles sometimes attack the branches or small trunks. The economic status of the various kinds of thrips remains uncertain; while some of them may aid in fertilizing the flowers, others probably are harmful.
From SEA STORIES Volume XIV, APRIL, 1927, Number 2. Digital Capture by Doug Frizzle September 2009.
Pedro had been brought up on a lonely island in the Caribbean by his foster father, Don Ramon Ortega, who found him as a baby, tied to a bit of washed-up driftwood. He knew nothing of his real parents or nationality, and when his foster father died he sailed away to discover what he could about his origin, also to carry out an oath of vengeance against the buccaneers who had ruined the old Don. He fell in with an ex-pirate named "One-eared" Jake, who, with a crew of ruffians, helped him prey upon the freebooters themselves. Pedro was dubbed "Red Peter," and, after a bloody battle, he shortly captured his first prize, the ship of the pirate captain, Gautier.
CHAPTER VII.
SINK me, but 'twere a merry fight!" exclaimed Jake, as he wiped the mingled grime, sweat and blood from his face and glanced approvingly about the littered, disordered decks. "Aye," he continued, "a pretty fight in truth. An' blow me, cap'n, but the best on it was the set-to twix' ye an' Gautier. Aye, an' ye saved me life, cap'n, that ye did, an' One-eared Jake owes ye twice for a-doin' of it. But," with a note of regret in his voice, "I were that busy with fightin' I ne'er had time to see the swordplay 'twixt ye two."
"And missed the sight of your ill-spent life," laughed Silver Heels. "By St. George, never have I seen prettier dueling."
"And never have I crossed sword with better man," declared Gautier, who was standing, with folded arms, awaiting the pleasure of his captors. "It irks me not to lose ship to Captain Red Peter, though 'tis strange to find Englishmen and buccaneers"—here he glanced meaningly at Jake and Silver Heels—"making war on ships of the Brethren."
Silver Heels' mouth twisted into a one-sided grin. "There be many strange things in this wicked world, Captain Gautier," he said, "and I misdoubt not, thy present plight is not the strangest turn of fate you will yet meet."
"Stow the fine talk, Sil'er Heels," growled Jake. "We ben't here for palaverin', but for takin' loot. Take ye men an' search the ship. T’ would be the most strangest thing of all if Gautier had no rich booty safe aboard."
Gautier laughed derisively. "Silver Heels told the truth for once," he announced, "and Fate has showed ye a bit of humor. Aye, strange as 'tis, Jake, there be naught of loot aboard ship."
"Ye lyin' hound," cried the one-eared sailor, an ugly look on his face. "Think ye we be babes to be taken in by that talk? Come, lads, to work with ye an' search the ship from keel to trucks."
"An' mayhap a touch of hot iron or a bit of flayin' alive'd bring a different tale from his mouth," suggested Black Tom.
"Silence," commanded Peter, for the first time showing his authority. "You art a murderous villain, Black Tom. Fie upon you for trying to stab a man in the back! And I'll have naught of torturing. Mayhap Captain Gautier speaks but the truth and has no booty. Speak but once more of such villainies and you leave my service."
With a sullen snarl, Black Tom followed after Silver Heels as he started aft toward the cabin on his search for riches.
"Sink me, cap'n, but ye have good luck," declared Jake, as the others walked away. "Here ye be, takin' of yer first prize an' now ye have a fine trim sloop for to go a piratin' of the Brethren with."
"Nay," contradicted Peter. "I have no mind to abandon my piragua. It has served us well and for mine purpose 'tis better than this ship."
Jake's eyes opened wide with surprise. "By the bone's o' Drake!" he exclaimed, "ye do be a rare, queer fish, cap'n. But," he continued, as an idea came to him, "sink me, if ye ben't right. Aye, the piragua be a right handy craft an' better for a-boardin' of them we wants to take than this here sloop. An' belike a few of the lads here be ready to jine with us. I'll have word with 'em."
Presently he returned, bringing word that four of Gautier's men were anxious to join Peter's forces, and thus the places of those who had fallen in the fight were once more filled. Then Silver Heels and Black Tom approached, looks of disappointment and chagrin on their faces, and reported that a few score pieces of eight, a dozen or two doubloons and a set of silver plate were the only valuables aboard the captured vessel.
Jake swore, fumed and threatened, declaring he was sure Gautier had treasure concealed somewhere, but Peter believed Gautier's statement that he had taken no prize since leaving port and that there was nothing in the way of loot aboard the sloop.
But if there was no treasure there was an abundance of food, drink and arms, as well as ammunition, and very rapidly these were transferred to the Sea Gull until the piragua could safely carry no more. Then the question arose as to the disposal of the captured vessel and her men.
Peter was at heart neither cutthroat, robber nor pirate, and though he had set out with the determination to destroy as many of the buccaneers as possible he could not bear the thought of butchering fellow men in cold blood or of leaving them to starve or go mad on some desert isle, as Silver Heels callously suggested. It was a far harder problem to solve than it would have been if Peter had been a real buccaneer and his prisoners Spaniards. In such cases, the freebooters took such of the captives as they desired as slaves and set the rest free on their ship, after disabling her, and left them to be picked up by some passing vessel of their countrymen or to make port however chance willed.
But Peter could do neither in the present case. He could not make slaves of Englishmen, even if he had been able to accommodate them upon his piragua, and it was quite evident that it would not do to leave Gautier and his men to be picked up by other rovers and thus spread the tale of Peter's undertaking and warn the buccaneers of the piragua.
For long they argued and discussed the matter. Silver Heels' suggestion having been discarded, and Black Tom's idea of slitting the throats of the captives not being considered, the entire solution of the matter was left to Jake and Peter. And it was the one-eared old villain who finally solved the puzzle.
"Set 'em ashore with food an' drink an' a few muskets," he said. "It'll not harm 'em nor hurt 'em an' 'twill give 'em a good rest for a bit. An' I know places whereon they'll not be likely to be found for many a month. Sink me, if I don't. Aye, a right pretty spot, just made for ye, cap'n. Aye, a tidy isle with sea birds thick as seeds in a gooseberry an' shellfish a-plenty on the shore, an' where never a ship stops for years on end."
So, taking Jake's advice, Peter detailed the necessary men to handle Gautier's vessel and, with the buccaneer captives and their commander safely locked under hatches, the two craft set sail for the "tidy isle," whose whereabouts only One-eared Jake knew. By daybreak the next day it was in sight, a tiny, wave-washed, barren rock some fifty acres in area and rising scarcely a dozen feet above the sea. Above it wheeled and soared countless sea birds, while thousands more sat on their nests on the rocks. There were stretches of shingle and little beaches where shellfish abounded, and in the hollows of the rocks, were pools of rain water. But there was not a tree, shrub or blade of grass upon the place, and Peter shuddered as he thought of being marooned on the miserable place for months, or maybe years. To be sure the men could not starve —eyen without firearms there was no danger of that with such an inexhaustible supply of birds and eggs—nor could they die of thirst and with the sails from their sloop they could erect shelters to protect themselves from sun and rain. In fact, the men who had expected to be most summarily dealt with, thought their lot was an enviable one, and even Gautier made no objections nor complaints. He was still in ignorance of Peter's motives in attacking him and could not understand this new development in freebooting whereby members of the Brethren attacked their fellows. But he was a man, who, through long years of buccaneering, had learned to take the worst of life along with the best. And as neither Peter nor his men offered an explanation he forbore to ask questions.
With plenty of food, a few casks of wine, ample ammunition, knives, axes, and a few muskets, as well as spars and sails and their chests of clothing, the prisoners were landed on "AvesIsland," as Jake called it. Then, the sloop having been towed well out from land, she was scuttled and sunk. Silver Heels, Black Tom and a few others protested against this destruction, for they little liked their cramped quarters in the open piragua, and they saw in the buccaneer vessel a comfortable, well-found craft. But Jake silenced them, declaring that if they didn't like their captain's ways or the piragua they were quite welcome to go ashore and join Gautier and his men. Also he pointed out that as the piragua had brought them luck with their first venture they would be foolish to tempt Fate by shifting vessels, while last and by no means least, was the fact that the Sea Gull was unknown to the buccaneers and would create no suspicions, whereas Gautier's sloop, if manned by others than himself and men, would instantly arouse the suspicions of any buccaneer craft they might approach.
Superstitious and thoroughly believing in luck and ill luck, and also appreciating the truth of Jake's arguments, the men stopped grumbling, and with parting taunts to the marooned buccaneers sailed northward once more.
Three days later, with the bulk of Cuba looming on the horizon ahead, they sighted a good-sized vessel which Jake declared he believed was a buccaneer ship, and they rapidly bore down upon her. As they came within sight of her colors and saw the green flag with its white knot of ribbon, —Silver Heels ripped out an oath and Jake slapped his thigh.
"Sink me, cap'n, we be in for a pretty set-to!" he cried delightedly. "Yonder's the Malice of Cap'n Jerry Mace!"
"Mace!" reiterated Peter. "The fellow whose head I cracked with mine sword hilt back in Anegada?"
"Aye, the same," affirmed the other. "Faith, an' he'll be waitin' for to give ye warm welcome, an' ye can lay to that."
Silver Heels guffawed. "Think you to use hilt or point in this fight, captain?" he asked banteringly.
Peter grinned good-naturedly. "Mayhap both ere I be done," he replied.
"An' mayhap neither, if Jerry Mace be sober," growled Black Tom meaningly.
"Aye, there'll be many a lad tossed to the sharks ere this day's done," remarked Jake. "But all the more loot for them as comes through with whole skins, I'm sayin'."
And as Peter gazed at the stately, three-masted vessel rising and falling on the almost calm sea ahead, and saw the grim muzzles of a dozen cannon sticking from their ports, and the swarm of men upon the decks, he had a strange tingling feeling up and down his spine and was half minded to shift his helm and give up all thoughts of attacking the other craft. That he, with his few men and hand weapons, could successfully assault a heavily-armed ship alive with the brave and reckless buccaneers seemed beyond all reason. It was nothing less than suicidal, be felt; but he had successfully taken Gautier's vessel; he had sworn to attack every buccaneer he met, and real fear did not exist in his make-up. So, straight toward the freebooter he sailed, until presently, the burly figure of the redoubtable Mace appeared by the quarter gallery rail and a bellowed hail came across the water.
"From the seas," came back the answer and, thinking the piragua some craft of the Brethren, Mace waved his hand, his men hurried to braces. The yards were swung and the Malice rolled motionless upon the waves awaiting the arrival of the supposed friendly visitors alongside.
Idly wondering in a dull way who they might be, Mace leaned upon, the rail, watching the Sea Gull approach. The flag, fluttering from the masthead of the piragua, was as strange to him as it had been to Gautier, but it excited no suspicions in his mind, for as he was well aware, new commanders were constantly arising among the buccaneers, and with a few men were setting out in small craft under their own colors to prey upon the Dons. No doubt, he thought, the oncoming craft was one of these, and having started on his career in a piragua himself, he was somewhat curious to see what manner of man might be in command of this company in the swift craft sailing under the scarlet burgee with its white bird.
Then he started, contracted his bushy brows and stared. His gaze had fallen upon the red head of the piragua's captain. Was it possible that the stranger was the youth who had worsted him back in Anegada? Had not that youth mentioned that he commanded a piragua? To be sure; but there were many piraguas and not a few red-headed pirates; and seizing his glasses, Mace focused them on the occupants of the boat now close to his ship. Instantly he was convinced. There, beside the red-headed captain, stood One-eared Jake, and there, among the motley crew, were none other than Silver Heels and Black Tom.
With an oath, Mace slammed his glasses shut and then gave vent to a sinister chuckle. He was not one to forget an injury or an affront, as Jake had said. Though he had made the best of the situation, had declared that he held no ill will, and had half apologized to Peter at the time of the affair in Anegada, yet in his heart he had vowed that sooner or later he would even scores with "Captain Red Peter," as Jake had called him. Indeed, ever since he had boarded his ship and had put to sea with an aching, bandaged head, the whole affair had rankled in his heart. Never before had he been overcome in a duel, and to be knocked down with a sword hilt like a common ruffian or a barking cur, was an insult he could never forgive nor forget. Not until he had again crossed swords with Peter and had come off victorious could he set foot in buccaneers' haunts without fear of ridicule or ill-timed jests at his expense, and here Fate was playing into his hand and sending his enemy into his clutches.
It never occurred to him that those in the Sea Gull must have known whose ship they were approaching; that Jake, Tom, Silver Heels and the others must have recognized the well-known flag. But even if he had thought of this he would have judged that they had accepted his words at their face value and expected to be treated with courtesy and greeted like friends.
That they had any hostile intentions was also undreamed of, and so, rubbing his hands and smiling to himself at thought of how he would clap the men under hatches and force Peter to crawl and cower before him like a whipped dog, Mace made no move to guard his ship, gave no orders for his men to arm themselves. Merely calling his mate he gave instructions that the visitors were to be plied with drink until helpless and then tossed into the hold and the hatches secured over them. As a result, Mace's crew lined the rails, peering curiously but without the least suspicion at the piragua as it drew alongside, and calling out rude jokes and rough greetings to those members of the Sea Gull's crew whom they recognized with the lessening of the distance.
Had they been so minded, Peter and his men might have boarded the Malice and might have taken her without a show of effective resistance. But strange as it may seem, the buccaneers had certain ethics which they always respected, and unprincipled as Jake and the others were, they would have considered it treacherous and utterly villainous to have fallen upon the ship's company without warning. But like many another ethic of warfare, and of peace as well, they, like others, were quite willing to stretch a principle or a recognized rule to the breaking point if it would be of personal benefit to do so. So, not until the Sea Gull actually grated against the sides of the Malice, did Jake cry out, demanding that Mace and his men yield. And scarcely had the words left his lips before he and his men were swarming up the ship's sides with weapons drawn and ready. Jake's warning had come too late to be of any value to Mace's men. Indeed, the warning and the attack had been simultaneous, and even if they had had time, the men on the Malice could have done little. Not one held a musket or a loaded pistol, the ship's cannon could not be brought to bear upon the craft so close alongside. Before the import of Jake's words and the significance of the piragua's crew scrambling up with drawn weapons had really dawned upon them, Jake, Peter and the rest were on the decks, cutting, stabbing, striking, shouting, as the amazed, bewildered, utterly demoralized crew of' the Malice strove to defend themselves with cutlasses and knives or scurried to seize arms from the racks.
Even Mace was so absolutely dumfounded to find his expected prey transformed into the aggressors that, with drooping jaw and wide eyes, he stood gaping for a moment at the melee on the decks. Then, with a bellow of rage, he whipped out cutlass and pistol and leaped down the ladders toward the scene of battle. Peter had also caught sight of Mace and impetuously had rushed aft, feeling that as commander of his men, and as avenger of Don Ramon's wrongs, he was in duty bound to personally battle with the captains whose vessels he attacked. With sword drawn he gained the foot of the ladder just as Mace reached the upper end. With a savage snarl the buccaneer raised his pistol and fired but his bullet went wild, and casting the weapon aside, he leaped halfway down the ladder with swinging blade. Peter was at a tremendous disadvantage. From his higher stand, Mace could rain savage blows at his antagonist, while Peter could not reach above the other's legs without mounting the steps and exposing himself to Mace's furious onslaught. Grasping the rail, Peter strove to defend himself and advance, but each time was beaten back, and he soon realized that he must either retreat, with the hope of drawing Mace to the deck, or must be beaten. But aid came suddenly and from a most unexpected quarter. Jake, having neatly disposed of the Malice's mate and two men, had chased a third into the cabin. Having settled accounts with him there, he was about to rejoin his men on deck when he heard the blows and hard-drawn breaths of men in conflict just outside the cabin window. Peering out, he had seen a pair of booted legs upon the ladder before his eyes, while just below, Peter was thrusting and parrying upward.
Instantly Jake realized what was taking place. His captain, who had twice saved his life, was battling with some one above and was at a disadvantage, and such a thing was not to be thought of. A fair fight was quite all right, and under no circumstances would the one-eared rascal have interfered. But this was a different matter. From where he stood he could take no active part in the fight, and before he could make his exit from the cabin and gain the side of Peter, the latter might be overcome. But there, within arm's reach, were the sturdy booted legs. Thrusting out one huge, hairy paw, Jake seized an ankle and gave a quick jerk. With a yell and a curse, Mace came plunging head over heels down the ladder, almost knocking Peter over in his fall.
As he struck the deck, Mace's sword flew from his hand, and before he could rise Peter stood threateningly over him.
"Zounds!' but it seems you have an uncommon thick skull!" exclaimed Peter. "Aye!" he added as Mace reached quickly for his knife, "so uncommon thick I must try to crack it once again."
As he spoke he raised his sword and brought the hilt once more crashing down on the buccaneer's head. With a groan, Mace collapsed as Jake reached Peter's side.
"Sink me, but ye did use the hilt, lad!" cried the latter. "An' blow me if I didn't near split me sides with laughter to see he come tumblin' down to ye when I jerked the legs from under him."
"Then 'twas you who caused his fall!" exclaimed Peter, who had thought Mace's tumble wholly accidental.
"Aye, cap'n," assented Jake. "Faith, one good turn deserves another an' ye saved life of mine twice. Belike ye'd have saved yer own this time, but, by the bones o' Drake, I helped ye save it a bit the sooner."
CHAPTER VIII.
Peter could scarcely believe that the seemingly impossible had been accomplished, that the ship had been taken. But so completely had the buccaneers been surprised that the loss on both sides was small, and with far less bloodshed than when Gautier's vessel had been captured, the Malice was in the hands of Peter and his men.
And when Silver Heels reported that she was fairly bulging with loot all were in high spirits.
"Faith, cap'n," said Jake, "ye'H have to let the piragua go an' take this ship. Sink me, but there be that much treasure aboard as'll fill three of the Sea Gull."
"Can we not carry the booty to some spot and place it ashore and set forth in the piragua?" replied Peter, who was still averse to shifting his allegiance from his beloved piragua.
The one-eared pirate shook his head. "Nay, cap'n," he declared. "An' where would ye take it? To the Dons, belike, or to some den of the Brethren? Blow me, but I'd rather twiddle me thumbs in a Dons' prison with the hangman's noose a-danglin' outside ready for me neck than to sail the Malice into a lair of buccaneers without Jerry Mace in command. And by the bones of Drake, he'll never command ship more. Sink me, but ye clouted him a fair, pretty blow, cap'n—to crack his thick skull!"
"You mean he is dead?" queried Peter, who had not realized that his blow had ended Mace's career.
"Aye, that he be, deader'n salt beef," replied Jake, "an' a good deed I'm say-in', an' ye can lay to that, lad."
It cannot be said with truth that the death of the buccaneer troubled Peter greatly. He lived in an age when men's lives were cheap. All the short time he had been among his fellows and away from Don Ramon's island he had been constantly face to face with acts of violence, and, morever, he had set out with the expectation and intention of putting an end to as many of the hated buccaneers as he could. He had done his best to kill Mace the first time he had met him; he had been equally ready to run his sword through Gautier, and both men had done their best to let the life out of him. That Mace had survived that first meeting had been due, as had Gautier's survival, to Peter's code of honor as taught by Don Ramon; and as the blow he had dealt Mace had been in self-defense he was not at all sorry that he had killed his late antagonist. At any rate, it relieved him of all trouble as to the disposal of the buccaneer, captain.
"Mayhap you are right, Jake," he admitted. "Perchance, with this larger ship and her guns, we can take more of the buccaneers and destroy them more easily. You are a sailor and know best, Jake."
Jake chuckled. "Sink me, but ye take things easylike, lad," he exclaimed. "Faith, with the Malice we can take the the best of 'em. Twelve an' four guns she do have, an' a right pretty ship for speed an' handlin'. Aye, cap'n, 'tis a pity ye no have mind to turn buccaneer."
Peter's scowl warned Jake to say no more, and with a mumbled word of apology for the slip of his tongue he hurried off to give orders.
But with the acquisition of the Malice, new troubles confronted Peter. With but a handful of men he could not hope to handle the ship or bring her into action properly. Although many of the captured seamen expressed a willingness to serve under his colors he realized, as Jake pointed out, that a much larger number of men must be secured.
"Belike I can find a few 'mongst the islands," said Jake. "But 'tis risky business, settin' foot ashore where there be many buccaneers. Soon's they touch rum the lads' tongues'll wag an' we'll be in a fair pretty mess. Nay, methinks, an' ye leave it to One-eared Jake, I'll be headin' a course for Honduras. There'll be many a lad yonder as’ll be glad to give up cuttin' Campeche wood an' jine along with us."
So the piragua having been stripped of all she held, the prisoners were placed aboard her, her sails and rigging were destroyed; and with enough food and water to serve them for a few weeks, the captives were set adrift and the Malice headed into the west.
To Peter it seemed like parting with an old friend as the Sea Gull dropped astern, but his heart swelled with pride as he glanced aloft and saw his scarlet burgee floating from the towering masthead of the Malice, and realized that he now commanded a real ship; that sixteen heavy guns were there to help him wreak vengeance on the freebooters, and that no vessel would prove too powerful for him to attack henceforth.
The immense loot that had been found aboard Mace's ship—for she had just taken three rich prizes—impressed him little. He had very vague ideas as to money or riches, and so far had never needed nor desired wealth. But he realized that loot was what his men wanted, that gold was the lure that led them on and kept them with him, and that, by taking this ship with her precious cargo, he had won the steadfast faith of his men, and that their tales would bring others of the reckless free lances of the sea to join him. But he was troubled over one matter, the question of his birth and nationality. He seemed no nearer a solution of that than before, and he could not see how destroying the buccaneers would help him unravel the mystery. Being young, strong, and not given to worrying, this did not trouble him for long, however, and dismissing the matter as something that would be worked out at some future time, he gave all his thoughts to his cruise of vengeance.
Long before the Malice, which had been rechristened the Sea Gull, had raised the low-lying Honduras coast above the horizon, Peter had met and taken two more buccaneer vessels. One was a large sloop which had been sunk by the guns of Peter's vessel before the men could board her. The other was a bark, under a Captain Sawney, which had been so battered and shattered that she had foundered within a few moments after Jake and the men had secured the thousand pieces of eight and the few other valuables aboard. To be sure, both of these vessels were much smaller than the former Malice and had been taken at a disadvantage and completely surprised. But Peter's men were in high spirits and ready to attempt anything.
Anchoring back of some wooded islets, Jake was rowed ashore, and in an hour or two returned, bringing with him seven ragged, rough-looking scalawags who had been only too glad to desert the logwood camps and join Peter's company. With these fellows as guides, or rather as pilots, the ship sailed along the coast, coming to anchor off many a jungle-shaded, sluggish river or densely-wooded island where the logwood gatherers had their camps, and at each, picking up a few men, until at last the crew of the Sea Gull had been increased to seventy men. This, Jake declared, was an ample number, and Peter, as he looked upon the wild, half-savage faces, the bizarre costumes, the touseled heads and bewhiskered jowls of the assembly had some misgivings as to the wisdom of shipping such an aggregation of cutthroats.
"Aye, they do be a bit rough an' ready," admitted Jake, when Peter mentioned his thoughts. "But they be good lads an' ready to do your biddin', an' ye can lay to that."
But had Jake and Peter known of all that was taking place aboard the ship they would have been far from easy in their minds. Though they never suspected it, the seeds of mutiny had been already sown and were being carefully nurtured toward maturity.
Never once had Silver Heels or Black Tom showed outward signs of discontent or of being anything other than faithful officers, but despite their outward appearances and actions, neither of the two worthies was either satisfied or true to Peter. Both rascals were utterly unprincipled and had no thought or object in life save loot and the wild orgies it would bring, and their only purpose in joining Peter had been to replenish their exhausted purses. To be sure, both had grievances against certain buccaneer leaders, but they had felt that Peter's professed purpose of preying on the freebooters was merely an excuse and that he would attack and take any ship he met with equal impartiality.
When they found that he would not molest peaceful merchant ships, even those of Spain, they were thoroughly disgusted. Although considerable booty might be secured from captured buccaneers' ships, still it was nothing compared to the treasure to be had by taking the vessels of the Dons, while the risk was far greater. Sooner or later they knew, word of Peter's activities would spread among the Brethren, and the freebooters, if they did not set forth with a fleet to hunt Peter down, would be forewarned and would give a very different account of themselves than had those Peter had already attacked. And they had no desire to be present when their red-headed commander was worsted. Indeed, had it not been for Silver Heels' insatiable curiosity and his desire to learn the truth of the mystery that surrounded Peter, he would have commenced his underhanded activities much sooner. But despite the fact that he had been a member of the ship's company for many weeks he was no nearer a solution of the matter than on the night when he had first met Peter in the Rat Hole at Anegada, and he was beginning to despair of satisfying his curiosity or of obtaining information he could use to advantage before Peter's career should come to an untimely end.
So, very carefully and in such a way that it could not be traced to him, he had encouraged discontent among the men, had turned their thoughts to the greater wealth to be won, and the lesser risk in the winning, by pirating the Dons, until, when a few days out from Honduras, the wild lot of villains in the forecastle were quite ready to rise and demand that Peter should act in accordance with their desires. And when a heavily-laden galleon was sighted one morning and the Sea Gull held steadily on her course, they deemed the time ripe, and with lowering brows and sullen looks they massed on the deck, muttering and cursing in a manner so threatening that Jake and Peter on the high poop deck could not mistake their purpose. But they had made the great mistake which is so often made by ignorant men who attempt to start a revolt; they had no leader. In a body they could mill and mumble and swear and even threaten, but there was no one man to champion their cause, no one they could look up to and obey. And not one of the gang seemed anxious to step forward and state their case to the one-eared mate and the red-haired captain who were gazing superciliously at them from the high deck.
And neither Silver Heels nor Black Tom wished to be identified with the incipient rebellion. They were quite willing to take charge after the men had done the dirty work, and to profit by what might result from the discord they had sown, but until all danger was over and the day was won they had no intention of taking any risks.
"What want ye, ye dogs?" cried Jake presently, as the assembled men still hung together amidships and a low, confused growl arose from the seventy-odd throats.
"Blow me, but ben't the food to your likin' or the quarters dainty enough for your dirty carcasses? By the bones of Drake, mayhap 'tis milksops an' sweetmeats ye be missin', or silken hangin's to your beds, belike—ye swine what never knew better bed nor the gutters, nor better food nor wormy bread an' moldy bacon."
At his words, hands reached toward pistol butts and cutlass hilts, and the fumbling growls increased in volume, but still no man made a movement to step forward from the crowd.
"Speak up!" commanded Peter. "If you have grievance out with it. I wish no malcontented crew on ship of mine, and there be aught to right, then shall I right it."
A sneering laugh rang from the throat of a burly, broad-shouldered rascal whose bristling, tangled beard spread over his bare, hairy chest. "Fine words," he bellowed. "Fair, fine words in truth, but not words to take yon galleon nor put good pieces of eight in our pockets. Here we be, seventy soul an' three, with ship an' guns, an' a lettin' yon Don's ship wave her cursed flag of blood an' mustard in our faces like we was a Thames barge an' she king's cutter. An' ye no want trouble, Master Red Head, ye'll shift—"
A pistol shot rang out, and with a choking gurgle the words died on the fellow's lips as he crumpled to the deck.
"Belay that, ye scum!" bellowed Jake as he reloaded his smoking weapon. "Blood an' powder! Think ye ye be runnin' of this ship? An' ye'll mind yer tongues an' speak proper respectful hereafter, I warrant. Sink me, but there be more bullets where that come from for them as likes lead to help sink 'em to Davy Jones, an' ye can lay to that, ye dogs."
At the shot and the death of the be-whiskered pirate, the others had cowered back. Despite the fact that they were seventy to two—for they felt that Silver Heels and Black Tom would side with them—so cowed were they by the superiority of those in command, and so long accustomed to obedience that they did not even make a move to lift the body of their comrade from the spot where it sprawled hideously upon the deck. They would attack a ship or a fortified town; would throw themselves pell-mell to certain death at the hands of their enemies, would never stop to consider risks or consequences in battle, but they dared not brave the two men with cocked pistols who faced them on the quarter deck.
But they were not yet submissive, not yet ready to abandon their purpose, to give up their attempt to force Peter to attack the galleon that was now within plain sight. "Sil'er Heels!" they shouted in chorus. "Give us Sil'er Heels for cap'n! He'll lay the Don alongside, we warrant ye."
Instantly Jake wheeled with leveled pistol pointing at Silver Heels' breast.
"So that's the lay!" he cried. "Ye white-livered, murderin' hound! Sink me but I have mind to shoot ye down like the dog ye be!"
"Nay!" exclaimed Silver Heels, his mouth twisting to one side and his eyes fear filled. "Nay, Jake, I have naught to do with yonder dogs' demands. By the cross of St. George, I swear it!"
"Be not hasty!" cried Peter. "Mayhap there be nothing in the words of the men, and Silver Heels knew nothing of their mutinous plans."
"Mayhap," growled Jake, reluctantly lowering his weapon. "An' mayhap he be the rotten apple in the pile what spoils the lot. Blow me, if I ain't think-in' belike 'tis he an' yon precious Black Tom what's been puttin' of the men up to this."
"I swear you are wrong," declared Silver Heels. "Black Tom I will answer for, and we both are faithful, true men. Aye, we will gladly shoot down the first, low-lived dog who dares raise word or hand against Captain Peter."
"Fine feathers make fine birds," quoth Jake. "But sink me, if I'm think-in' fair words make fair men. Faith, cap'n, Sil'er Heels has ever been a trouble maker an' many's the loggin' he's won for it. An' ye say the word, we'll put he an' his crony ashore on some handy cay with a gang of yonder scum an' leave 'em be to fight it out 'twixt 'emselves."
Peter shook his head. "Nay, Jake," he replied. "If Silver Heels or any of the others be discontented and wish not longer to bide with me, then will I put within reach of friendly port and bid them go."
"Hear ye that, lads!" shouted Jake, again addressing the crowd that still remained on deck. "Naught could be fairer. Let them as wants to go buccaneerin' in other ships step aft an' ye'll be set safe ashore an' no hard feelin's."
But Silver Heels' declaration of fidelity to his commanders had been overheard. The men, whose dull wits could not see through his double dealing and deceit, were confused, disappointed and at a loss. Realizing that half a loaf is better than no bread, they instantly decided that the loot to be won by preying on the buccaneers' ships was preferable to being "on the beach" without a centavo to their names. So no member of the company stepped out at Jake's words. Then a tall, sinewy, logwood cutter spoke: "Beggin' yer pardon, cap'n," he cried, "might I be arskin' of a question—meanin' no harm an' no offense to no one, so to say?"
Peter nodded. "Aye," he replied, "but whether I give answer or not is another matter."
The fellow, somewhat embarrassed at his own boldness, cleared his throat and spat viciously over the rail.
"Jake, yonder," he began, "was a-tell-in' of us as how ye have grudge against the Brethren an' was a-piratin' of 'em. Now me an' me mates was a-thinkin' as we'd have chance to even old scores a bit by a j'inin' of ye, but we was minded as how ye'd be doin' buccaneerin' an' a-takin' of loot, too. Then, strike me blind, if we don't find ye a parsin' of yonder Don by without firin' of a shot, an' we says, says we, this ain't no fit buccaneer craft for we if we ben't takin' of prizes, says we. An' now me an' me mates'll be arskin' of ye why ye ben't takin' of Dons' ships an' loot, an' where, we're arskin' of ye, do we get our lay of swag if ye ain't, says I? An' I'd be arskin' of ye, too, what ye got against the Brethren, cap'n? An' if 'tis all on 'em ye have mind to set on, or sartin' of 'em?"
"I be no buccaneer," replied Peter, "and that you knew when you joined my ship. I have naught against the Dons and I molest them not, but there be booty aboard the buccaneers' ships an' to spare; aye more loot than aboard ships of Spain, and what we rob from the robbers is your gain. What I hold against the buccaneers is concern of mine own and has naught to do with you. But I mind not telling you that 'tis against all, but most against he that is known as Captain Starling."
"And now back to your kennels," snapped out Jake as Peter ceased speaking. "And thank your stars ye have a fine, fair cap'n, an' that yer misbegotten carcasses ben't danglin' to yardarm for darin' to threaten mutiny aboard of this ship."
Still glowering but obedient, the crew turned toward the bows, carrying their dead comrade with them and casting longing, hungry glances at the rapidly vanishing topsails of the galleon, now hull down on the horizon.
For a time the trouble was over. No doubt, as Jake told Peter, the men would mull the matter over, would argue among themselves, would discuss the pros and cons of the affair, and, as a result, would be divided and broken up; some still remaining discontented and wishing to follow the true buccaneer's life, others standing by their officers, while—so the one-eared rascal affirmed —if Silver Heels had had a part in the mutinous attitude of the men he would be cordially hated by them for deserting their cause at the critical moment and would have no further influence with them.
In a way, the experienced old pirate's prophecy was borne out. The men did not argue and discuss the matter and many, especially those who had been with Peter on the piragua and had won riches in the taking of Mace's ship, were loud in their avowals of faithfulness to Peter and Jake and declared they had never intended either mutiny or disobedience. Others, as Jake had foreseen, still grumbled and growled and threatened. But Jake had underestimated Silver Heels' influence and power. A few of the men were outspoken in their opinion of his disavowal of any part in the affair when called upon, but others, who had thought on the matter, had rightly come to the conclusion that Silver Heels had some good reasons for his seeming treachery, and still defended him.
"He be a rare wise old bird, do Silver Heels," declared one hoary old corsair. "Aye, mates, he had reason for a denyin' of sayin' aught to us or a knowin' of what we was after, an' ye can lay to that, I'm sayin'."
"Aye, blow me if he hadn't!" jeered a red-faced youth whose right shoulder, due to some wound or injury, projected forward and had won him the nickname of "Starboard-tack" Jack, "Aye, a right good reason—Jake's pistol muzzle at his breast."
A chorus of laughs mingled with growls of disapproval greeted the deformed man's sally.
"Aye," he continued, "an' mind ye what Jake was sayin'! That fair words don't make fair men! Scuttle me, but he might have added as brave boots don't make brave hearts, an' him with his sil'er heels an' crooked mouth a-gab-blin' like frighted woman an' most a-beggin' of Jake not to shoot him."
"Say that to Sil'er Heels, Jack," rumbled another man. "Faith, ye be the first to talk of he bein' coward.''
"Mayhap he be not—with a crowd of stout lads at his back," admitted Jack. "But, stiffen one, if he weren't scared when he see Jake's pistol aimin' at he, an' Bill a-lyin' there where he'd been shot down by that there same pistol."
"Ye're a babblin' fool," growled another. " 'Tis brains, not bravado, what tells. Belike Sil'er Heels knowed better'n to get kilt or hurted then. What good would it have done us, I'm askin' of ye, if he had? Nay, a dead leader's no use to none but the sharks, but a live un's a live un an' Sil'er Heels ain't done yet.''
Jack chuckled. "An' faith, if Sil'er Heels ben't blessed with more brains than bravado 'tis little he has to be blowed out of his skull when the time comes," he declared. "An' mark me well, mates, he'll be more use to the sharks than to we if he runs 'thwart the hawse of One-eared Jake or Cap'n Red Peter too often."
The retort to this was never uttered, for at this moment the cry of "sail!" was raised, and the men forgot all differences as they scrambled to vantage points, peering ahead at the distant ship.
CHAPTER IX.
To the men's delight she was soon identified as a buccaneer—a French ship, and the ill feeling between the French and British freebooters running high at that time, the men on Peter's vessel were almost as pleased at the prospect of attacking the Frenchman as though she had been a Spanish galleon.
But for once, Fate or luck was against Peter. The French captain, suspicious of any British vessel, whether buccaneer or merchantman, was taking no chances and was thoroughly prepared for anything when the Sea Gull came within hail. And the more he studied the ship flying the scarlet burgee, the more he disliked the appearance of the ready guns grinning from their ports and the rough-looking swarm of men upon the decks. When it was evident that the Sea Gull intended to run alongside, the French captain leaped to the rail of his lofty, gilded poop and roared out an order in broken English to "sheer off." Then, seeing this was disregarded, he suddenly shifted his helm, and running up into the wind, tacked. The maneuver was deftly executed and those on the Sea Gull, being absolutely unprepared for it, were unable to shift their course or trim sail until their vessel had swept past the Frenchman whose immense lateen sails enabled him to handle his craft much more quickly and easily than was possible with the square sails of Peter's vessel.
"Curse him for a frog-eating Frenchie!" cried Jake, as orders were shouted and the men rushed to braces and bowlines and he strove to bring the Sea Gull about. "Sink me if he ben't scared of lettin' of us alongside."
Had the French captain been sure that those on the Sea Gull had hostile intentions he might easily have sunk the ship with a broadside, but as yet there had been nothing to prove they were not friendly, and he had no desire to engage in battle if it was unwarranted. So, with every man ready to obey any order, the French buccaneer awaited the next move of the Sea Gull. It was not long in coming. Bringing the ship about in wonderfully quick time, Jake headed again for the French vessel, hoping to get at close quarters before the other could evade him, and to proclaim his intentions and pour in a broadside at the same instant. But once more the French freebooter out-maneuvered the one-eared pirate. He had noticed men at the ship's guns; he no longer doubted that she intended to attack him. Being a firm believer in the advantage of striking the first blow, he luffed his vessel, and as the Sea Gull swept by within a cable's length, he poured a broadside into her stern.
Fortunately for Peter and his ship the French gunners were poor shots, and in their excitement had failed to alter the original elevation of their pieces which had been trained for long range. As a result, the bulk of the metal went screeching over the heads of those on the Sea Gull, ripping through sails and rigging, carrying away a few spars, but doing little serious damage. One chain shot tore through the quarter gallery, disabling the rudder. Another struck the after gun, dismounting it and killing the gunners, and a third ripped along the Sea Gull's starboard side, carrying away the gun port bulkheads, knocking guns helter-skelter and effectually putting all but three of the starboard guns out of commission. Unmanageable, helpless and crippled, the Sea Gull swung into the wind. As she did so, thus bringing her port side toward the French vessel, her heavy guns thundered out and a terrific hail of shot was hurled at the other craft. But the broadside had come too late. The Frenchman had no desire to endanger his ship and men in an engagement that promised no returns in booty, and no sooner had he raked the Sea Gull with his battery than he bore off before the wind at topmost speed. As a result, the shot from Peter's heavy artillery hurtled harmlessly into the sea, only two reaching their mark, and these doing no greater damage than to carry away the ornate lantern on the Frenchman's poop and to knock ten feet of scroll work from her highly-decorated quarter.
Jake was fairly beside himself with rage. His pop eyes seemed about to burst from their sockets, his face was purple, he foamed at the mouth, and he swore and cursed until even the hardened men shrank back, as he gazed at the damage wrought, at the littered, wreckage-covered decks, and at the unhurt, rapidly vanishing, French ship.
It was bad enough to be beaten by a Frenchman, but to be crippled, put out of the running, and not even have a chance to get in a telling shot in retaliation, was more than the one-eared old reprobate could stand. Even Peter's arguments that they were lucky to have gotten off so easily were of no avail. Jake fumed and raged, driving the men to superhuman efforts to clear away the litter and repair the damage, swearing vengeance on the French captain and acting for all the world as though the Frenchman had been the aggressor and the Sea Gull an innocent, peaceful ship fired upon without provocation.
So maddened with rage was he that he gave orders as though he were in command, paid no heed to Peter and behaved altogether like a maniac. And when he turned on Peter, and quite forgetting who he was addressing, uttered a foul oath in response to a question, Peter's hot blood rose, and leaping forward, he drove his fist full into his mate's face. Jake staggered back, one pop eye half closed, blood streaming from his nose and amazement on his rage-distorted features.
But Peter's blow had brought him to his senses.
"Blow me, but ye done right, cap'n," he spluttered. "Faith, an' I crave pardon, but I was that beside meself I fair forgot I wasn't cap'n meself."
The men working madly at the wreckage had been too busy to see this momentary set-to between their commander and mate, but Silver Heels had taken it in and burst into a sneering laugh as Jake uttered his apology.
"Ye snickerin' popinjay!" snarled' Jake, turning on Silver Heels, and only too glad of a chance to vent his fury on some one. "Ye laugh, do ye! Belike, that'll straighten yer mouth for ye!"
As he spoke, he aimed a vicious blow at Silver Heels' face. But the fellow had expected it; had, in fact, purposely tried to excite Jake's anger. As Jake leaped at him he swung up his right hand, there was the flash of steel, and with a half inarticulate cry, the one-eared pirate staggered back, blood streaming from an ugly gash in the shoulder. Had it not been for his upraised arm which had foiled Silver Heels' stroke, the knife would have been plunged into Jake's breast, and his life would have sped then and there.
Peter had seen all. At the flash of the blade he had leaped forward, drawing his sword as he did so; but he was at too close quarters to use the steel. Quickly shifting his grip, he brought the hand-wrought iron hilt crashing onto Silver Heels' head, and despite the thick felt hat and the kerchief under it, the man went down like a felled ox.
Whether he was dead or merely stunned Peter neither knew nor cared. He had struck at Jake with intent to kill, and as yet Peter was not sure whether his mate had received a mortal wound or not. But his first glance at the gash assured him that Jake's time had not yet come, for the mate, swearing roundly and cursing Silver' Heels fluently, seemed quite as strong and sound as ever, despite the loss of blood dripping from the long, deep cut. By this time the men's attentions had been attracted to the quarter deck, and dropping their work, they had gathered about, some even climbing up the ladders to the poop to get a better view of what was going on.
And what they saw was decidedly disconcerting to some and quite to the liking of others. Silver Heels was stretched senseless on the deck, Jake, with blood flowing copiously from his sleeve, was being aided by Peter whose face bore an expression none had ever seen before, while Black Tom was crouching near the helm, lips drawn back, eyes glaring, and poised as if half minded to spring upon the captain and mate, and yet fearing to do so.
Disgruntled at having been beaten by the Frenchman and having no booty for their pains, malcontented as they were, the mutinous members of the crew saw, in the preoccupation of Peter and in Jake's wound, a chance to strike, despite the fact that Silver Heels, whom they had counted upon, was either dead or unconscious. Whipping out a pistol, the nearest fellow sprang up the last few steps to the deck, calling to the others to follow, and hurled himself toward Peter and Jake. Instantly the others were at his heels. A leader had been needed, a leader had arisen, and like snarling wolves, they followed him.
At the sound of footsteps and of growling voices, Peter and Jake wheeled and faced the oncoming cutthroats. With a curse, Jake drew his pistol with his left hand and fired and Peter's sword flashed from its scabbard. The leader's pistol fell clattering to the deck as Jake's bullet crashed through his arm, but the onrush was unchecked.
An instant more and Peter and Jake would have been overwhelmed—would have been borne down, torn to pieces. But before that instant passed, at the second when the foremost mutineer met Peter's sword, there was a thunderous explosion, a belching burst of flame and smoke from the starboard side of the poop. Before the amazed, half-blinded eyes of Peter and Jake, the oncoming pirates seemed to dissolve in air; seemed to be swept from before them like chaff. Where an instant before had been a murderous mob of shouting savage men, was now a hideous litter of dead and dying men, of severed limbs, of gruesome blood and shattered flesh. Half stunned by the explosion so near them, for a moment unable to understand what had occurred, Peter staggered back, wiping the pungent powder smoke from his smarting eyes and stared about. And then he knew. Beside the starboard carronade, stood two men, one a gnarled old villain, the other a younger man whose projecting right shoulder identified him as Starboard-tack Jack. From the grim muzzle of the bronze piece, wisps of smoke still drifted and the muzzle pointed inward across the decks!
With a grin, Starboard-tack Jack touched his forehead. "Scuttle me, cap'n, but I feared I'd aimed too far aft," he exclaimed, as he saw Peter and Jake were unhurt by the terrific blast from the carronade that he and his crony had wheeled about and had discharged into the mutineers in the nick of time.
"I be no gunner, as ye know, an' old Bart here, ain't much better. But I see 'twas no time for pickin' an' choosin' an' we took the chance. Blow me for a bloomin' sojer, but I'm think-in' there be few of 'em swabs left for to mutiny."
"Aye," cackled old Bartholomew. 'An' ye fair made a holy mess of yon decks, Jackie. 'Twill be takin' a shipload of holystones an' a sea of water to clean 'em up, lad."
"You saved our lives, men," cried Peter, stepping forward and grasping-the hands of the two faithful men. "And we'll not forget."
"That we won't, lad," declared Jake. "By the bones of Drake, 'twas a merry thought ye had."
"An' pity Sil'er Heels were not amongst 'em," put in old Bart. "Though," he added, with a glance at the still prostrate Silver Heels, "he do look uncommon dead. Mayhap, cap'n, ye cracked his skull as neat as ye served Jerry Mace."
Jack chuckled. "Do ye mind how I was sayin' as he'd be more use to the sharks than to we if he fouled cap'n's hawse?" he queried.
" ‘Tis all the likes of he be fitten for," mumbled Bart, as he stepped toward Silver Heels. "Come, Jackie lad, let's be not keepin' the sharks waitin'."
As they stooped to lift Silver Heels' body, old Bart started. "He ben't dead!" he exclaimed.
"Sink me, if he be," cried Jack. "Faith, cap'n, shall we heave him o'er side ere he knows he lives?"
"Nay," commanded Peter. "You be murderous rascals to give thought to such act. Take him below, secure him well, and when he recovers I will pass upon his case."
Jake shook his head a bit dubiously as the others lifted Silver Heels and carried him below.
"Belike 'tis a pity he wasn't tossed over, dead or alive," he muttered. "Mark me well, cap'n, 'twere better to have end of such as he. But," as an afterthought, "mayhap 'twere better yet to hang him to yardarm for 'tothers to see. An', sink me, where be that sea louse, Black Tom?"
Peter shook his head. "I know not," he replied. "Perchance amongst the crew."
But a search among the men revealed no sign of Black Tom's presence, and Jake declared he must have been blown to pieces along with half a dozen of the mutineers by the opportune discharge of the carronade.
As far as the uprising was concerned, all troubles were over. The men, awed and terrorized by the sudden and awful fate of their fellows, had lost all desire to assert themselves. Both faithful and rebellious men had retreated to the forward portion of the ship and stood silent, speaking in lowered tones, and anxiously awaiting the next move of Peter and Jake who, with old Bart and Starboard-tack Jack, were talking together on the poop. That swift punishment would be meted out to them, the mutineers were convinced, and their only concern was whether they would be marooned, forced to walk the plank, or summarily hanged.
Jake was all for making a terrible example of the rascals, and old Bart supported him, but Peter had other ideas and Jack agreed with him.
He pointed out that if the remaining mutineers were executed or marooned the ship would be left short-handed and might fall an easy prey to the first buccaneer's ship they met; for the Frenchman, having escaped, would unquestionably spread the news of the former Malice's attack upon him. From now on they might expect to find the freebooters prepared for battle whenever they were sighted. Moreover, he argued, the men had already received a wholesome lesson and a severe punishment, and those malcontents remaining would be only too willing to serve faithfully to save their lives. Finally, as he stated to the others, it would be almost impossible to identify the mutineers, for even Jack could not with certainty name them all and they were not likely to admit their part in the uprising.
"Them as talked the most be gone to their last port," said Jack. "An' with Sil'er Heels lyin' with cracked pate, an' trussed neat and tidy below, the lads'll not be makin' trouble more."
"Mayhap ye be right," assented Jake a bit reluctantly. "An' 'tis true we cannot be Ieavin' of oursel's short-handed. Aye, most of 'em's been that near hell they heard the flames roarin', an' belike they'll not be longin' for gettin' nearer."
So it was agreed that, for the present at least, the men should be left unpunished, and after a forcible harangue by Jake, they were ordered to work, repairing the neglected damages and scouring the "holy mess" as Bart had called the carnage on the poop, from the planks.
By evening the Sea Gull was once more under sail and on her way while the crew, many of whom had pictured their lifeless bodies floating on the sea or dangling from the yards ere sundown, used every effort to show their submissiveness and willingness to serve. Indeed, Jake with a chuckle, declared that he had never seen more nimble, obedient men and that, in his opinion, a mutiny followed by blowing a dozen men to bits might prove a desirable part of the daily routine of a ship.
In this, Jack and Bart were rather inclined to agree with him, for these two worthies lot had been vastly improved by the events of the memorable day. Bart had been given Black Tom's place as quartermaster, and Starboard-tack Jack had stepped into Silver Heels position as second mate. From ordinary seamen they had been transformed to officers, and Jack, feeling that his new position warranted it, had arrayed himself as befitted the occasion. With his malformed shoulder hunched forward he paced the high deck garbed in a long-skirted coat of wine color so smeared with dirt and grime that it appeared a dull brown, a tattered shirt of what had once been fine linen, wide breeches of black, banded with white, a black beribboned hat on his head and battered jack boots on his bare feet. Bart, who possessed no such resources in the way of a wardrobe, had contented himself by donning a flapping straw hat which was jammed over the gray bandanna tied about his gray head, thrusting his feet into almost soleless shoes with immense brass buckles, and adding a strip of scarlet rag as an auxiliary to the tarred marline that supported his dilapidated canvas breeches.
Silver Heels' case still remained unsettled. That he richly deserved death all agreed, but Peter, who had been taught and trained by a former grandee of Spain, felt that to execute an injured man would be a cowardly act and was for nursing the ringleader of the mutiny to health before passing sentence. Jack suggested as a compromise that he be marooned, while old Bart, with a toothless grin, hinted that if the captain should turn Silver Heels over to the crew there would be no further need of bothering their heads over his fate.
Finally a compromise was reached and it was agreed that until Silver Heels had fully recovered he should remain a prisoner, and that as soon as he was able to care for himself he should be placed in a small boat with a slender stock of food and water and set adrift off some uninhabited shore, thus leaving it to himself to remain marooned or pull for the nearest settlement..
But the best-laid plans of the four in command of the Sea Gull were as apt to go awry as the plans of other men. At the change of watch, old Bart was sent below to see how the captive fared and to serve him food and water. A moment later, his cracked voice echoed through the ship in a high-pitched shout, his rapid footsteps clattered up the ladder, and with his disreputable hat flapping about his eyes and his tattered shirt flying, he came racing aft.
"He be gone!" he shrilled. "Gone, body an' soul. Aye, stab me if he ben't —belike the devil's tooken he!"
"Gone!" cried Jake. "Ye blatherin' scum of a madhouse how be he gone?"
Without waiting for a reply, the one-eared sailor dashed below with Peter. But old Bart was right. There was no trace of Silver Heels who, a short time before, had been lying securely bound, and apparently helpless from his wounded head, within the tiny cubbyhole of a lazarette. He had vanished as completely as though Satan had flown off with him, as Bart had said.
"By the bones of Drake, there be treachery aboard!" cried Jake. "He could never win away without help. Sink me, but I'll have the blood of them as has done this."
"Yea, he escaped not alone," agreed Peter. "Mayhap—yea that is it, Jake —Black Tom has had a hand in it. Methinks he was in hiding for this very purpose."
"Then strike me dead if I don't have 'em!" exploded Jake. "They have neither wings to fly nor fins to swim, an' they'll be still aboard. Sink me, but I'll rip the planks from timbers to find 'em!"
"Mayhap, if they be still aboard," said Peter. "But I misdoubt it, Jake. Seek first if a boat be not missing."
Jake's jaw dropped. "Blood an' powder!" he exclaimed. "I be a fair idiot, in truth."
Turning, he hurried on deck and rapidly made the rounds of the boats. But he did not have far to search. The wherry, which had been used in clearing away the wreckage of the battle, had been left in the water, trailing astern at the end of its painter, and as Jake grasped the line and drew it in the mystery was solved. The rope had been cut—the wherry was gone.
Disgustedly Jake dropped the severed rope, gazed about the dark sea and muttered an oath.
"Fair gone—the crooked-mouthed dog," he muttered. "Aye, an' that black sea louse with him, I'll warrant. Faith, cap'n, didn't I say 'twere better to have tossed him to the sharks this morn?"
"Scuttle me, Jake, but 'twould have but given the beasts their meal the sooner," remarked Jack. "An' they'll be gettin' twice the feedin' now. Yon wherry'll not live long in the blow that's comin', an' ye can lay to that."
"Aye, the devil'll have his own," mumbled old Bart, nodding his head. "He was a goin' to be set adrift in a boat anyhow, an' he's but saved us the bother."
"Yea," agreed Peter, "and his blood is not on mine hands. Look you, Jake, 'twill be a wild night as Jack says."
So fully occupied had they been with the escape of Silver Heels that they had not noticed the rising sea and increasing wind, but now that Jack had called attention to the weather, all could see that they were in for a blow, or perhaps a hurricane.
Shouting orders, Jake and the others routed up the crew. Men came racing across the decks and swarmed into the rigging; and hurriedly, feverishly, sails were stowed and reefed and all made snug. Before it was accomplished, the wind was screeching through the rigging, great black seas came surging out of the west to break in hissing foam, livid in the incessant greenish glare of lightning. Inky, shredded clouds scudded by so low that the dizzily rolling mastheads seemed to pierce them, and under almost bare poles, the Sea Gull raced through the night before the tempest.
Stanch, buoyant, well found as she was, the big ship strained, pitched, groaned and trembled, and all upon the Sea Gull knew that Silver Heels and Black Tom—or whoever had escaped with him—must have gone to death in the storm-lashed sea. No small boat could survive an hour, and with every sense, every ounce of their strength, all their seamanship, devoted to bringing the vessel in safety through the hurricane, those upon Peter's reeling, pitching ship gave no further thought to the wherry and its human freight.
CHAPTER X.
The Sea Gull safely weathered the storm, though driven far to the east, and a few days later, successfully attacked and took a buccaneer ship with no inconsiderable booty, though losses were heavy on both sides.
Weeks passed and grew into months, and still Peter and his men cruised, having many a battle, taking many a ship, and putting into out-of-the-way spots far from settlements of the Dons or haunts of the Brethren to refit and secure water and supplies. Several times, too, they visited ports wherein no buccaneer dared set foot, orderly, law-abiding isles and towns. And with incredible speed, considering the means of communication of the times, word of Peter's object, and stories of his deeds, spread far and near.
By the peaceful inhabitants, Peter was looked upon as a sort of hero, for, with the treaty of peace signed between Spain and England, the buccaneers were deteriorating into common pirates and more than one British and French ship had been taken by them. But the stories of the Sea Gull's activities and of Peter's deeds had also reached the ears of the freebooters, and every corsair craft kept a sharp lookout for the ship flying the scarlet flag with the white bird, and none were to be caught napping as in the early days of Peter's cruise. Several times he had been beaten in battle and had been driven off, and few of his original crew remained. Jake had come through it all unscathed, Starboard-tack Jack was still there, and old Bart was much the same as ever, aside from three fingers of his left hand which had been lopped off by a cutlass in the hand of a buccaneer.
The ship, too, had suffered. Her rigging had been shot away, repaired and replaced in a score of places. Her hull had been pierced by cannon shot and had been patched, but still Peter refused to desert the vessel that had served him so well, and in her stead make use of one of his prizes. And in this, Jake, who was not a little superstitious, heartily agreed with his captain. During the months that had passed the two had become the closest friends. In fact they were more like brothers; and while Jake was ever respectful and deferential to Peter in the presence of others, still, when by themselves, the two were on most intimate terms. And Jake had never forgotten that he owed his life to Peter. Though he had put in many a timely stroke and had fired many an opportune pistol shot in the nick of time to save Peter, he still vowed the score was not evened and never would be. Both Bart and Jack would also willingly have given their lives if need be for either their redheaded young captain or the villainous-looking, one-eared old pirate, and the four had piled up fairly comfortable fortunes in loot taken from the sea robbers whom they had robbed.
It was not strange that Peter should have saved, for he was no spendthrift and was a temperate man for his times, but it was little short of incredible that the other three should have put away a centavo of their booty. Jake had never thought of money or treasure except as a means to an unholy spree, and Jack, and even the ancient Bart, had always been as free with their gold as any of the freebooters. But under Peter's influence they had greatly changed in their ways. Moreover, for the first month or two, they had had no opportunity to spend their riches, even had they so desired, for the Sea Gull had given a wide berth to all spots where such pleasures as they craved were to be had. During that time they had contented themselves with gloating over their rapidly accumulating wealth and imagining the glorious debauch that it would buy when they reached port. But gradually, the saving habit grew upon them and they spent hours trying to calculate how much they would have at the end of six months and arguing over the best way to spend it.
Old Bart, to every one's amusement, vowed he was going to marry and settle down, "to spend me old age," as he put it.
"Belay!" Jake had cried, "Ye be a dodderin' derelict nigh a hundred year old now. Sink me, where think ye ye'd find woman to mate with a bag of skin an' bones like ye?"
The ancient pirate's eyes narrowed and his toothless gums showed in a wide grin. "Faith, Jake, me lad," he had cackled, "ye may be a fair fine sailor an' tidy hand with cutlass an' pistol, but ye know naught of woman. Nay, give the wooden figgerhead of a ship bags of good gold, or fill scarecrows' pockets with pieces of eight, an' ye'll not meet lack of lassies willin' to marry of 'em. An', ye crab-eyed old swab, I ben't old—mayhap a bit o'er three score—an' a long life an' a easy one is afore me bows."
Jack chuckled. "Aye, Bart," he exclaimed. "An' after ye be settled with the missus I'll be droppin' in for a bit of chat an' to dangle yer younkers on me knee!"
"Mayhap, mayhap;" nodded the old fellow, failing to note Jack’s wink and the banter in his tones. "Aye, an' I'm minded to name one of 'em after ye, an' mayhap t'others for Jake an' cap'n."
"Heaven have mercy on ye for a old simpleton! Mayhap they'd be all lassies!" roared Jake.
"Stab me if I thought of that," cried Bart, and mumbling to himself, he forgot all else in his efforts to think of some scheme for avoiding such a catastrophe.
As for Jake, he declared that he would purchase a ship and go trading. Jack vowed he'd sail for England and go to farming, while Peter's one thought was to use his wealth in traveling about in search of his birthplace and parents. In fact, with the passing of the days, he became more and more concerned over this matter. Destroying the buccaneers' ships and their crews was beginning to pale and seemed of little use, for, as he confided to Jake, there always seemed to be as many more, no matter how many he swept from the sea, and despite all his efforts, he had so far been unable to come to grips with the man he sought most of all—the redoubtable Starling.
Thus matters stood when the Sea Gull, being in need of supplies, put into Barbados and came to anchor in CarlisleBay off Bridgetown.
There was no fear of buccaneers to make matters uncomfortable for Peter and his men here. Never had the Barbadians countenanced the freebooters, nor winked at their misdeeds as had the denizens of many other British isles, and Peter felt safe in entering the harbor and letting his sea-weary men ashore. But he had no intention of allowing them to make trouble by overdrinking and carousing. Knowing the ways of the rough fellows as well as any one by this time, he gave orders to Jake that the men should be given only such portions of their dues as might be safely spent. Of course, the rascals grumbled, for there were attractions, such as they sought, to be had in plenty in Bridgetown. But Peter's word was law, and the reputation he had earned —not to mention Jake's and Jack's— was such that the most blustering, swashbuckling, mutinous buccaneer on the Caribbean would think twice before showing open rebellion.
Leaving the ship in charge of old Bart and Jack, Peter went ashore with Jake. Scarcely had they stepped upon the quay when an officer in the king's uniform approached them.
"Sink me if he don't think we be pirates," exclaimed Jake.
"Nay, more likely some of our men have been overgay," muttered Peter.
"If I mistake not, you come from yonder ship, the Sea Gull," said the officer, barring their way while a gaping, curious crowd of white, black and colored onlookers gathered about the three.
Peter nodded in assent.
"And I judge that you, sir," he said to Peter, "be the captain."
"Aye, Captain Red Peter."
"Then, captain," continued the other. " 'Tis my orders to conduct you before his excellency, the governor."
"Did I not say he took we for pirates," exclaimed Jake in a hoarse whisper intended only for Peter's ears, but which was quite audible to all within a dozen paces.
"Nay, his excellency knows well who you be," the officer assured them. " ‘Tis his pleasure to have word with ye."
Curious to know why the governor should have summoned him, and how, indeed, his excellency had ever heard of him, Peter, with Jake striding by his side, followed the officer through Bridgetown's streets toward the government house.
The governor, a middle-aged man with twinkling eyes, soon appeared in the reception hall where the one-eared pirate, very ill at ease, and the redheaded young captain of the Sea Gull were waiting.
"So you be Captain Red Peter!" exclaimed the governor, extending his hand. "Zounds! but you are a mere stripling, captain. I thought, from tales that had reached mine ears, that I would see a grizzle-headed man. And yonder old sea dog," he continued, nodding toward Jake, "he, I take it, is your master-at-arms?"
"And my mate as well, your excellency," replied Peter. "A faithful man and true. He be known as One-eared Jake."
"A most fitting name, in truth," laughed the governor. "Though both it and its bearer savor mightily of piracy."
"Aye," burst out Jake. "An' afore cap'n here ran afoul of me, 'twere name an' face as were knowed far an' near 'mongst the Brethren an' with deeds ahind 'em as no man need be 'shamed on."
"No doubt, no doubt!" agreed the governor. "And if words I have heard be truth, much less to be ashamed of since joining Captain Peter. And now," he went on after seating himself, "for the purpose of mine audience with you, captain.
" 'Tis little passes in the Indies that comes not to mine ears in due time," he continued. "And from time to time word of your deeds has been brought hither. 'Tis no secret, I take it, that for some strange cause you have chosen to gather unto yourself a wild crew of rovers and with them have wrought havoc 'mongst the pirates, for such be the buccaneers to-day since our majesty the king has signed treaty of peace with Spain. Those who harass the Dons violate the pledge of friendship 'twixt their majesties and thereby are but common malefactors to be punished as the law decrees.
"But, though edicts have gone forth to this effect, and decreeing severe punishments for all pirates, yet the corsairs still sail and snap their fingers at law and treaties. Faith, 'tis little wonder.England has few ships and fewer men with which to patrol the seas; and those of her colonies in the West Indies —though I regret to say it—are much in secret sympathy with the pirates, and will do little or naught to bring them to justice. Aye, they be more likely to give warning to the rascals and afford them safe harbor, methinks. Yea, even from Jamaica, where Sir Henry Morgan rules with iron hand, rumor has it that pirate ships still set sail and that the ex-buccaneer reaps benefit to his purse thereby.
"But we of Barbados have no patience, nor feeling for the freebooters, and it had been in my mind, to equip a vessel to aid his majesty's forces in suppressing piracy upon the Caribbean. Then to me came word of your deeds, and by chance your ship—as though guided by Fate or Providence—dropped anchor off our port. Here then, captain, is my proposal—that you shall act for us and his majesty, continuing to prey upon the corsairs, but under royal warrant. 'Twill hamper you not at all and give unto you due authority for destroying the pirates, though perchance the glory, if aught there be, may redound more to mine own credit and that of England than to thyself. And there be another matter to consider. I know not if you destroy the pirates for sake of loot or merely for some whim of thy fancy, and it matters not a farthing to me. But with royal commission to prosecute thy strange warfare, there will be prize money and recompense for thyself and thy men as well. What think you, captain? Wilt join the forces of his majesty and sail under the banner of England?"
Peter was quite speechless with surprise at the wholly unexpected proposition of the governor, and Jake, for once, was too amazed even to blurt out a quaint oath. To sail with a royal commission, to fly the white ensign and become a member—if an irregular one— of England's naval forces; to be an accredited representative of Britain's power were honors Peter had never dreamed of. To accept the governor's proposal would not in the least interfere with his plans. It would give him prestige and standing. Any pirate who resisted him would be using force of arms against the British Crown, and he could freely visit any British or friendly port without fear. But how would his wild crew take it? How would Jake and the others like the change from a free lance to a British privateer? They had signed on with Peter, but not on a privateering vessel, and they had the right to say whether or not they would serve under royal commission.
But as far as Jake was concerned that worthy settled the matter before Peter could speak.
"Sink me!" he cried. "But who'd 'a' thought of seein' One-eared Jake a sailin' in king's ship an' a huntin' down of the Brethren? Bones of Drake!' That be a right merry jest, sir, blow me, if it ben't. An' fair fine for ye, cap'n. I warrant them as meets ye'll think twice afore firin' on the Sea Gull with the cross of St. George a-flyin' from her peak. An' belike ye'll be a-findin' out of who ye be, what with a visitin' the isles an' gov'nors, an' all."
His excellency, who had been listening to Jake's words with a smile, showed signs of interest as he spoke the last sentence.
"What's that?" he exclaimed. "You mean Captain Peter knows not his parentage?"
"Nor mine country," put in Peter before Jake could reply.
Then, in as few words as possible, he told his story to the governor, who listened intently to his account until he had ended.
"An amazing tale!" he exclaimed when Peter finished. "A most amazing and romantic tale, but after all, not so amazing. Many a youngster was left an orphan by the wild deeds of the buccaneers, and I fear much 'twill be passing hard for thee to find trace of thy origin. But, after all, what matters it? ‘Tis a man's deeds and life, not his birth, that count and, for all you know, 'tis as likely you be son of noble blood as of adventurer or seafarer. And it matters still less whether you be British, Spanish, French or Dutch. With royal warrant in thy pocket and under England's flag, English will you be if you accept mine offer, captain."
"Yea, I will accept," agreed Peter, "I was but thinking, would Jake and the others agree, and Jake takes to it as readily as he takes to ship's deck or smell of powder smoke."
So, four days later, when the Sea Gull's anchors were lifted and her sails spread and she bore outward from CarlisleBay, the royal standard floated bravely from her peak and Peter bore the beribboned and besealed parchment that commissioned him to attack, capture and destroy all pirates and pirate craft wherever they might be met.
I have now published over 35 books. They are by authors from the past, the books were rare so I have made them available in paperback or as ebooks. They are available at Lulu.Com, more particularly they are listed here. Doug's Bookstore
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I recommend that you click and drag (select) all the text that you want. 'Ctrl' + 'C' to copy. Then open an empty WORD document on your computer and 'Ctrl' + 'V' to paste. You should then print with page previews... This suggestion may save a few trees - blog articles tend to run on and not be space efficient.
and the Outboard Boys Series. The Boys, Terry, Martin and Warren, were created by Roger Garis and appeared in the four-book series published in 1933 and 1934. The Boys used their powerful outboard motors to solve mysteries and have adventures, etc.
