Adventure Magazine Cover — page 161: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Pirate Tales from the Law—Kidd quickly from India through the Indian / Ocean to the Red Sea and gulf countries. Compared with Africa, India, of course, had an old and rich civilization and it was for the products of that country that the mouths of pirates watered; the costly silks, linens, spices and gold and silver treasures which had become the traditions of sailors’ dockhead stories. As it happened, however, it was not a cargo going from India which first enticed Captain Kidd, but cargoes going thence from the gulf region, more particularly the fat freight of what was known as the Mocca Fleet. “Men,” said Kidd as he swung the Adventure’s nose suddenly about at the end of his dallying days in the Indian Ocean, “we are off to Bab’s Key and the Mocca Fleet. We will ballast our good ship with gold.and silver from this Mocca Fleet.”’ Thus did Kidd treat his commission as a scrap of paper, to be quite modern, and thus, with a roaring cheer, another terror was added to the troubles of meness commerce. Tit MM. AT THIS port of Bab’s Key, then, a4 the Mocca Fleet was being stuffed as the fox stole smoothly upon it from the Indian Ocean. About fourteen ships made up the fleet, going in mass for safety, and chartered by the usual polyglot crowd of Dutchmen, Arabians, Moors, Armenians and so on. : While the coolies sweated and strained and hauled bundles and bales aboard certain odd-looking strangers sauntered about the docks, marking. closely the lading of the vessels. These were Kidd’s men, spies he had sent ashore to warn him of the sailing of the fleet. With desiring eyes these men watched the caravans pouring in from the interior and emptying their freights into the various holds. Rich mierchandise lay spread all about— loot that their doughty commander was to appropriate without a thanky-you and distribute among their tarry palms. x Not only that, but had you gone into the low, round hills that basoned the town, _ you would have seen lurkers there, watch- ing keenly the work on the fleet. More of the Adventure’s men, sentineled all around by the captain as a ‘kind of double watch. Kidd, you notice, was a man of method— Mater . great. dividends. Whether the presence of the spies had — : disturbed the skippers of the Mocca Fleet is conjectural, but when it did put to sea at — ie length it was under both Dutch and English — convoy. And in spite of Kidd’s keenness it got away without notice. Only when morning came above the sie ing deep, after two or three weeks of waiting, did the lookout cry the captain from his ~ cabin that the fleet was passing. True enough—there over the horizon the high poops of the Mocca ships were oak Wore wagging away to safety. Orders immediately eee the decles oe like the great drops of a thunderstorm. The anchor chain grated sharply against the bows while the shrouds were ail at once black with racing men. A few minutes and the Adventure began to take the water slowly—sail after sail bellied out and quickly she leaped and ducked and flung herself upon the heels of her prey. Fourteen ships convoyed by armed Dutch and English guards would seem a large bone for so small a terrier as the pirate boat to grasp. Something must take possession of the reason of. English- speaking sailormen when combat promises, for long odds challenge rather than daunt them. Their maritime acts sparkle with just-such feats as this—absurd but ina way | heroic—and had Kidd had the color of law upon his work, the story of the Mocca Fleet would have echoed in generations of — English schoolrooms. Kidd certainly was grown on the tree that bore Grenville, Drake, Frobisher, Hawkins and the rest, even though it might have been advisable to prune him out. In quite the traditional] spirit Kidd hurled his - little ship .at the great Mocca Fleet as _ casually as a boy would fling a stone into a flock of sparrows. It might stimulate the imagination to tell how this extraordinary effort netted > big gain, and how the Adventure knocked the merchantmen to left and right and plucked the fattest and richest of them from their midst, from which the captain re- — deemed his tropical promise to ballast his ship with gold and silver. But that would not be the fact. 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