The Green Flag | Page 8

waved no longer, but the rifle stood in the mimosa
bush, and round it, with their wounds in front, lay the Fenian private
and the silent ranks of the Irishry. Sentiment is not an English failing,
but the Hussar captain raised his hilt in a salute as he rode past the
blood-soaked ring.
The British general sent home dispatches to his Government, and so did
the chief of the Hadendowas, though the style and manner differed
somewhat in each.

The Sheik Kadra of the Hadendowa people to Mohammed Ahmed, the
chosen of Allah, homage and greeting, (began the latter). Know by this
that on the fourth day of this moon we gave battle to the Kaffirs who
call themselves Inglees, having with us the Chief Hussein with ten
thousand of the faithful. By the blessing of Allah we have broken them,
and chased them for a mile, though indeed these infidels are different
from the dogs of Egypt, and have slain very many of our men. Yet we
hope to smite them again ere the new moon be come, to which end I
trust that thou wilt send us a thousand Dervishes from Omdurman. In
token of our victory I send you by this messenger a flag which we have
taken. By the colour it might well seem to have belonged to those of

the true faith, but the Kaffirs gave their blood freely to save it, and so
we think that, though small, it is very dear to them.

CAPTAIN SHARKEY.

I
HOW THE GOVERNOR OF SAINT KITT'S CAME HOME.
When the great wars of the Spanish Succession had been brought to an
end by the Treaty of Utrecht, the vast number of privateers which had
been fitted out by the contending parties found their occupation gone.
Some took to the more peaceful but less lucrative ways of ordinary
commerce, others were absorbed into the fishing fleets, and a few of
the more reckless hoisted the Jolly Rodger at the mizzen, and the
bloody flag at the main, declaring a private war upon their own account
against the whole human race.
With mixed crews, recruited from every nation, they scoured the seas,
disappearing occasionally to careen in some lonely inlet, or putting in
for a debauch at some outlying port, where they dazzled the inhabitants
by their lavishness, and horrified them by their brutalities.
On the Coromandel Coast, at Madagascar, in the African waters, and
above all in the West Indian and American seas, the pirates were a
constant menace. With an insolent luxury they would regulate their
depredations by the comfort of the seasons, harrying New England in
the summer, and dropping south again to the tropical islands in the
winter.
They were the more to be dreaded because they had none of that
discipline and restraint which made their predecessors, the Buccaneers,
both formidable and respectable. These Ishmaels of the sea rendered an
account to no man, and treated their prisoners according to the drunken
whim of the moment. Flashes of grotesque generosity alternated with

longer stretches of inconceivable ferocity, and the skipper who fell into
their hands might find himself dismissed with his cargo, after serving
as boon companion in some hideous debauch, or might sit at his cabin
table with his own nose and his lips served up with pepper and salt in
front of him. It took a stout seaman in those days to ply his calling in
the Caribbean Gulf.
Such a man was Captain John Scarrow, of the ship Morning Star, and
yet he breathed a long sigh of relief when he heard the splash of the
falling anchor and swung at his moorings within a hundred yards of the
guns of the citadel of Basseterre. St. Kitt's was his final port of call, and
early next morning his bowsprit would be pointed for Old England. He
had had enough of those robber-haunted seas. Ever since he had left
Maracaibo upon the Main, with his full lading of sugar and red pepper,
he had winced at every topsail which glimmered over the violet edge of
the tropical sea. He had coasted up the Windward Islands, touching
here and there, and assailed continually by stories of villainy and
outrage.
Captain Sharkey, of the twenty-gun pirate barque, Happy Delivery, had
passed down the coast, and had littered it with gutted vessels and with
murdered men. Dreadful anecdotes were current of his grim
pleasantries and of his inflexible ferocity. From the Bahamas to the
Main his coal-black barque, with the ambiguous name, had been
freighted with death and many things which are worse than death. So
nervous was Captain Scarrow, with his new full-rigged ship, and her
full and valuable lading, that he struck out to the west as far as Bird's
Island to