Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 18, No. 3, September 18, 1926
- Автор: Bailey H. C., Bechdolt Jack
- Год: 1926
- Язык: английский
- Год: The Red Star News Company
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 18, No. 3, September 18, 1926». Краткое содержание книги:
It was a tribute to the high loyalty of the two friends that Caraccioli, restive though he himself was for the sea and action again, consented to remain in charge of Libertatia while Misson in the Victoire and the pick of their men went roving again.
This time they sailed toward Zanzibar and if fighting was what they yearned for then fortune smiled upon them. For across their path heaved the great sides of a Portuguese ship showing twenty-five guns on each side. Such an armament meant rich treasure to guard.
So that both adventure and appetite decided Misson for battle. Running up his white flag with its device, A Deo a Libertate, he opened fire. The Portuguese didn’t stop to decipher the flag, but replied with more guns than the Victoire.
Enter Thomas Tew
Under the blistering sun of a tropical sea the two ships spouted fire and death at each other. Misson knew that so long as they stayed at a distance the duel would go against him, for the Portuguese had more guns.
He also could see on the decks of the enemy twice as many men as he had. But whereas one cannon is about as good as another of equal caliber, one man may be worth more than his number once he can come to grips with the enemy. So in the face of a galling cannonade the Victoire closed in with the Portuguese, and from one deck to the other leaped a boarding party.
The approach had cost Misson men enough. Now the hand-to-hand fight against superior numbers was taking still greater toll. But, like the good psychologist and valiant fighter that he was, Misson cut his way through to the captain of the Portuguese.
Him he engaged in single-handed duel with cutlasses. The captain was a good seaman and a fair fighter. But Misson was a picked man, destined to stand out in his generation; and fighting was one of his great talents. So down to death went the captain of the Portuguese.
They had fought their duel at the edge of a companionway on an upper deck. When Misson’s cutlass finally clove the captain from collar to breast the dead man toppled down the steps into the midst of his own men.
Every one saw him fall, and his hacked body carried with it the psychology of defeat. Misson’s men were, after all, picked fighters and, mistaken or not, they had something in their hearts to fight for; whereas the crew of the Portuguese were serving only for wages. So, not long after the death of the captain, the crew surrendered.
Into the captain’s cabin went Misson and his lieutenants to discover what reward was theirs* In great copper-bound chests they found the greatest prize their cruising had as yet brought them. In bullion and in coin they found two hundred thousand pounds in gold.
Laden with more treasure than they could spend in the uncivilized land they now called their home, yet fully appreciating all that gold would buy to make Libertatia the more livable, Misson returned to his haven. The guns on shore boomed a welcome and the guns on board the Victoire echoed the greeting.
A festival was held at the reunion. Then Misson gave Caraccioli a pleasant holiday on the sea by sending him in the Victoire, accompanied by a consort, down the coast to the Cape, there to buy with gold many of the comforts civilization had to offer.
And here, for the time being, let us leave the Liberi in their charming Utopia while we go to Bermuda on the Atlantic to make the acquaintance of Thomas Tew, who was to play such a vital role in the careers of Misson, Caraccioli, and Libertatia.
The Rhode Island Yankes
He was a spare-framed Rhode Island Yankee, tormented habitually by a lust for change and action. His mind was as restless as his body and was forever forging ahead of him, in imagination exploring dark continents, hewing roads through the jungle to new lands of treasure, charting out new sea routes for lanes of rich trade.
Madagascar had fired his imagination as a land of raw riches. And New York, with its great warehouses, enticed him as the other end of a route which he could ply, growing richer with each voyage. The fact that no one had thought of this combination before made the project only the more attractive to Tew.
As capital for his scheme he had little more than his burning imagination and considerable skill as a mariner. Of money he had little or none. What he needed was first of all a ship, second a fit crew for his enterprise.
A Golden Chain or Hempen Rope
Then he heard that in Bermuda, Governor Ritchie was fitting out two sloops to go to the mouth of the river Gambia on the west coast of Africa, there to attack and pillage the stations established by French traders in competition with the English. Tew applied for the captaincy of one of the sloops, and got it.
Once on the high seas he permitted the other sloop to lose sight of him.
Then calling his crew together he addressed them to this effect: He pointed out that the mission on which they were sent would benefit nobody but a handful of private traders. There was danger in the expedition, but not the least prospect of booty or public good.
He had a better scheme to propose, one which would lead them to ease and plenty and enable them to spend the rest of their days masters of themselves and with gold in their pockets. Instead of pulling chestnuts out of the fire for others, why not do it for themselves?
The crew were more than ready for his proposal.
“A gold chain or a hempen rope!” they cried. “We’ll stand by you! Lead us!”
His response was as generous as theirs. “I accept. But you shall have your say in the conduct of our enterprise. Let you choose a quartermaster who will represent you in all matters of general concern and without whose consent, as your agent, I shall do nothing. Then you, my crew, and I, your captain, will rise or fall together.”
With a roar of approval the crew of the Jezebel, instead of proceeding north, rounded Cape Horn to that Madagascar of which Tew had so long dreamed. But it was to the sea that he looked for the fulfillment of his dream of riches — to the sea, to his good cannon and the better men under him.
And just as the Jezebel came abreast of Madagascar there hove into sight a gallant, prosperous looking ship, fairly reeking with suggestion of good looting. “Our first prize, my lads!” cried Tew, pointing to the stranger. “Let’s show them our colors and speak the first word!”
Then to the masthead of the Jezebel ran up the black flag and the skull and cross-bones of piracy. And Tew’s biggest gun fired to the windward, demanding surrender of the stranger.
But the stranger ran up a white flag with an inscription dedicated to God and liberty and sent an answering gun to the leeward of the Jezebel. The answer was as eager as the challenge, and the crews of both ships prepared for battle with the avidity of beasts of prey in sight of succulent game.
As I picture to myself Francois Misson on his Victoire and Thomas Tew on his ship, each unlimbering his cannon to open fire on the other, I cannot help visioning some figure of destiny brooding over their ships at that moment and calling upon its infinite resources to stop at the last instant the two men from slaughtering each other, they who were to mean so much to one another.
The Finger of Destiny
Just as the battle was about to break out there came from over the horizon the mastheads of a great ship flying the colors of a British man-of-war. The same thought must have occurred at that moment to Misson as well as to Tew. Here they were about to let fly at each other, protagonists of equal strength.
After either of them had disabled the other that British man-of-war would come in and lick the platter clean. For each ship knew itself to be quarry to the Britisher. Tew would be hunted down for his black flag. Misson, in spite of his white flag with its pious motto, was as unequivocally known for a pirate.