Adventure Magazine Cover — page 166: what you’re looking at

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

164 - New York, whose political enemies, airing _ the arrangement with Kidd, began to openly accuse him of having a good big finger in the piratical pie. ‘Thus far off all sorts of trouble was brew- ing for Captain Kidd as he beat about the spicy coast of India. as {= BUT a most momentous turn of for- = tune was impending. And it was high BS = time. The pirates were thoroughly fed Ee with butter—out of almost every capture _. . they had taken butter, until it was butter, S.: butter and nothing but butter. The Ad- ~*~‘ veniure promised to become a sort of float- ee ing grocery store, specialising on butter, = ae with coffee a strong second, while, for those Bs with a fancy for dreams, liberal quantities SS of opium could be passed over the counter. =? Bellamont and Company had not gone to Sa considerable expense just to corner the but- = ter market of the East Indies, nor to seri- Ss ously interfere with the dairy and grocery on businesses of those regions. Had they been ao in receipt of monthly reports from their 3 peculiar partner away out there they would Age have been both surprized and disappointed ~~ and very properly grieved. _. The butter era was about to end sharply. ____ The Quedagh Merchant did that. = A comparatively large ship she must have oe been when Kidd first saw her lumbering -___ along,loaded down to capacity. As soon as ae he spotted her out from the locker came —. the French flag again, and as a French ship ae he drew quickly alongside. Probably the ae usual round shot across the bows brought Se her up. If so that was the only demonstra- __, tion of violence which marked the taking of e -- one of the richest ships that ever a pirate gloated over. As soon as the Merchant braced back Kidd sent a boat from his ship to her with orders to bring the captain to him. The boat came back with an old Frenchman grumbling and puzzled in the stern. The skipper of the Merchant naturally thought a Frenchman should represent them to a French ship of unknown but threatening attitude. This old man, however, had not been long in talk with the pirate chief before he confessed that he was not the master of the Quedagh Merchant, but her gunner. Whereupon Kidd sent the boat off again for _ the real commander. Vote} Tee ENC me BEL eye f oe P if PET oM Oy eee te OMe ea bh i ead © i. ‘Fie ee Pe EN wh . . 4 ' 4 7 alt eS As / a ee | ‘ the old gunner—and a crew of Moors. Adventure One begins to see the value of the ruse of - sailing under French colors. Many of the ships on that particular beat evidently had French clearance papers—British trade was probably almost entirely through traffic around the Cape to England—the coast- wise business was Moorish, by which was generally meant Arabian, ‘Dutch, French and Armenian. Hence to approach the ordi- nary coaster, the French colors at his mast, avoided the delay and difficulty of a pro- tracted pursuit, as well as served to disarm them when overtaken. Whenever they had French passes, in- stead of showing force to a seemingly French ship, the easiest and most natural thing for them to do_was to expose their papers, and so proceed peacefully on their way. Sucha ship as this which Kidd was now taking could no doubt have put up some measure of resistance had she been forewarned. Still again, Kidd artfully induced them to show a French pass and then revealed him- self as an Englishman commissioned to take just that sort of craft, and thus despoil many victims without discovering his real traffic. The French pass idea struck Kidd as so good that he worked it not only in the waters of the Indies but in the courts of his out- raged Majesty, King William as he entered the valley of death’s shadow. This time the boat came back carrying a swearing \Englishman, one Wright, indu- bitable skipper of the Quedagh Merchant. When he set foot on the pirate’s deck Kidd brusquely informed him he was a prisoner, being off a French ship, as witness the em- bassage of the old French gunner. While Wright, who had formerly been a tavern keeper at Surat, bleated about the decks, Kidd sent a crew over to take possession of the Quedagh Merchant. Here they found a couple of Dutchmen, probably the ship’s mates, a Frenchman— An- other group of considerable importance to the story was that of the charterers of the ship—certain Armenians under the headship of one Cogi Baba: In a little while Kidd joined his merry men. Here occurred a curious little comedy. So soon as Kidd came up the side, the Ar- menians rushed toward him and with loud cries and prayers besought him to return them their ship. They thrust at him the . respectable ransom of twenty thousand | Eomicboo SS (EO)