Stolen Treasure | Page 2

There he found the great pirate established at an
ordinary, with a little court of ragamuffins and swashbucklers gathered

about him, all talking very loud, and drinking healths in raw rum as
though it were sugared water.
And what a fine figure our buccaneer had grown, to be sure! How
different from the poor, humble clerk upon the sugarwharf! What a deal
of gold braid! What a fine, silver-hilted Spanish sword! What a gay
velvet sling, hung with three silver-mounted pistols! If Master Harry's
mind had not been made up before, to be sure such a spectacle of glory
would have determined it.
This figure of war our hero asked to step aside with him, and when they
had come into a corner, proposed to the other what he intended, and
that he had a mind to enlist as a gentleman adventurer upon this
expedition. Upon this our rogue of a buccaneer Captain burst out
a-laughing, and fetching Master Harry a great thump upon the back,
swore roundly that he would make a man of him, and that it was a pity
to make a parson out of so good a piece of stuff.
[Illustration: "THIS FIGURE OF WAR OUR HERO ASKED TO
STEP ASIDE WITH HIM"]
Nor was Captain Morgan less good than his word, for when the Good
Samaritan set sail with a favoring wind for the island of Jamaica,
Master Harry found himself established as one of the adventurers
aboard.
II
Could you but have seen the town of Port Royal as it appeared in the
year 1665 you would have beheld a sight very well worth while looking
upon. There were no fine houses at that time, and no great
counting-houses built of brick, such as you may find nowadays, but a
crowd of board and wattled huts huddled along the streets, and all so
gay with flags and bits of color that Vanity Fair itself could not have
been gayer. To this place came all the pirates and buccaneers that
infested those parts, and men shouted and swore and gambled, and
poured out money like water, and then maybe wound up their
merrymaking by dying of fever. For the sky in these torrid latitudes is

all full of clouds overhead, and as hot as any blanket, and when the sun
shone forth it streamed down upon the smoking sands so that the
houses were ovens and the streets were furnaces; so it was little wonder
that men died like rats in a hole. But little they appeared to care for that;
so that everywhere you might behold a multitude of painted women
and Jews and merchants and pirates, gaudy with red scarfs and gold
braid and all sorts of odds and ends of foolish finery, all fighting and
gambling and bartering for that ill-gotten treasure of the be-robbed
Spaniard.
Here, arriving, Captain Morgan found a hearty welcome, and a message
from the Governor awaiting him, the message bidding him attend his
Excellency upon the earliest occasion that offered. Whereupon, taking
our hero (of whom he had grown prodigiously fond) along with him,
our pirate went, without any loss of time, to visit Sir Thomas Modiford,
who was then the royal Governor of all this devil's brew of wickedness.
They found his Excellency seated in a great easy-chair, under the
shadow of a slatted veranda, the floor whereof was paved with brick.
He was clad, for the sake of coolness, only in his shirt, breeches, and
stockings, and he wore slippers on his feet. He was smoking a great
cigarro of tobacco, and a goblet of lime-juice and water and rum stood
at his elbow on a table. Here, out of the glare of the heat, it was all very
cool and pleasant, with a sea-breeze blowing violently in through the
slats, setting them a-rattling now and then, and stirring Sir Thomas's
long hair, which he had pushed back for the sake of coolness.
The purport of this interview, I may tell you, concerned the rescue of
one Le Sieur Simon, who, together with his wife and daughter, was
held captive by the Spaniards.
This gentleman adventurer (Le Sieur Simon) had, a few years before,
been set up by the buccaneers as Governor of the island of Santa
Catherina. This place, though well fortified by the Spaniards, the
buccaneers had seized upon, establishing themselves thereon, and so
infesting the commerce of those seas that no Spanish fleet was safe
from them. At last the Spaniards, no longer able to endure these
assaults against their commerce, sent a great force against the

freebooters to drive them out of their island stronghold. This they did,
retaking Santa Catherina, together with its Governor, his wife, and
daughter, as well as the whole garrison of buccaneers.
This garrison were sent by their conquerors,