Pirate Latitudes

On a long ocean voyage, it was not possible for the captain to make such examinations himself. An ocean voyage called for literally tons of food and water for the passengers; and much of the meat was taken on live, squawking and mooing.

But privateers traveled differently. Their small boats were crammed with men, and provisioning was slight. A privateer did not expect to eat well on a voyage; sometimes, in fact, no food at all was taken on, and the vessel set out with the expectation of obtaining provisions by raiding another ship or a town.

Nor were the privateers heavily armed. The Cassandra, a sloop of seventy feet, carried four sakers, swivel-mounted guns positioned fore and aft. These were its only armament, and they were hardly suited against even a fifth- or sixth-rate warship. Instead, the privateers relied on speed and maneuverability - and a shallow draft - to elude their more dangerous opponents. They could sail closer to the wind than a larger warship, and they could make for shoal harbors and channels where a bigger ship could not continue pursuit.

In the Caribbean Sea, where they were hardly ever out of sight of some island with its protective ring of shoal coral reefs, they felt safe enough.

Hunter worked at the loading of his ship until nearly dawn. From time to time, whenever curious onlookers gathered, he was careful to send them away. Port Royal was thick with spies; Spanish settlements paid well for advance news of an intended raid. And in any case, Hunter did not want people to see the unusual supplies he was laying in - all the rope, the grappling hooks, and the strange bottles the Jew had provided in cases.

The Jew’s cases, in fact, were stored in an oilskin sac, and placed belowdecks, out of view of the seamen themselves. It was, as Hunter explained to Don Diego, “our little secret.”

As dawn was breaking, Mr. Enders, still energetic, still bouncing with his lilting walk, came over and said, “Beg pardon, Captain, but there’s a one-legged beggar’s been lingering by the warehouse for the better part of the night.”

Hunter peered at the building, still dark in the early-morning light. The docks were not a profitable place to beg. “You know him?”

“No, Captain.”

Hunter frowned. Under other circumstances, he could send the man to the governor and request that the beggar be clapped in Marshallsea jail for a few weeks. But the hour was late; the governor was still sleeping and would not be pleased at a disturbance. “Bassa.”

The huge form of the Moor materialized at his side.

“You see the beggar with the wooden leg?”

Bassa nodded.

“Kill him.”

Bassa walked away. Hunter turned to Enders, who sighed. “It’s best, I think, Captain.” He repeated the old proverb. “Better a voyage begin in blood than end in blood.”

“I fear we may have plenty of both,” Hunter said, and turned back to his work.

When the Cassandra set sail a half hour later, with Lazue forward to watch for the shoals of Pelican Point in the dim morning light, Hunter looked back once at the docks and the port. The town slept peacefully. The lamplighters were extinguishing the torches at the dock. A few well-wishers were turning away, having said their good-byes.

Then, floating facedown in the water, he saw the body of the one-legged beggar. In the tide, the body rocked back and forth, the wooden leg knocking softly against a piling.

It was, he thought, either a good omen or a bad one. He could not be certain which.

Chapter 13

“‘CONSORTS WITH ALL manner of rogue and villain,’ ” sputtered Sir James. “ ‘Encourages… the continuance of dastardly and bloody raids on Spanish lands’ - good God, ‘dastardly and bloody,’ the man is mad - ‘permits use of Port Royal as a common meeting place for these cutthroats and knaves… unsuited to high capacity… abides all manner of corruption…’ Damn the man.”

Sir James Almont, still in his dressing gown, waved the letter in his hand. “Damn the rogue and villain,” he said. “When did he give you this?”

“Yesterday, Your Excellency,” Anne Sharpe said. “I thought you would want it, Your Excellency.”

“Indeed I do,” Almont said, giving her a coin for her trouble. “And if there is more of the same, you shall be further rewarded, Anne.” He thought to himself that she was proving an exceedingly clever child. “Has he made advances?”

“No, Your Excellency.”

“As I thought,” Almont said. “Well, we shall devise a way to settle Mr. Hacklett’s games of intrigue, once and finally.”

He walked to the window of his bedchamber and looked out. In the early dawn light, the Cassandra, now rounding the point of Lime Cay, raised her mainsail and headed east, gaining speed.

…

THE CASSANDRA, LIKE all privateering vessels, made first for Bull Bay, a little inlet a few miles east of Port Royal. There, Mr. Enders put the ship into irons, and with sails luffing and fluttering in the light breeze, Captain Hunter made his speech.