 |
| Walter Kennedy |
WALTER KENNEDY
Unlettered Pirate
by Walter Schwob
Captain Kennedy was an Irishman. He could neither read nor write. Under the great Roberts he rose to the lieutenant grade by merit of his talent for torture. He was perfection itself at the art of tightening a cord around a prisoner’s brow until his eyes popped out, or of tickling his face with a flaming palm leaf. When Darby Mullin was tried for treason aboard the Corsaire Captain Kennedy’s reputation became assured. Seated in a semicircle behind the wheel house, the judges assembled with their long tobacco pipes around a bowl of punch. Then the process began. They were about to vote the verdict when someone suggested another pipe before concluding the business. Kennedy rose, drew his clay from his pocket, spat and delivered himself of the following sentiments:
“Great God, sirs, devil take me if we don’t hang me old comrade Darby Mullin. Darby’s a good lad and-the man who says he ain’t. And we’re gentlemen o’ fortune. Hell, Darby and me has bunked together: I love him with all me heart, I do. But Great God, sirs, I know him, the- He’ll never repent, devil take me if he will, eh, ain’t that so, Darby me lad? Good God, go ahead and hang him! Hang him by all means. And now, sirs, with the leave o’ the honorable company I’ll just step up and take a good swig to his health.”
This discourse was considered admirable —as great as any of those noble military orations reported by the ancients. Roberts was enchanted, and from that day Kennedy became ambitious. Near the Barbadoes Roberts embarked in a sloop to pursue a Portuguese vessel. During his absence Kennedy forced his shipmates to elect him captain of the Corsaire, then sailed away on an enterprise of his own making. He looted and scuttled numerous brigantines and galleys carrying cargoes of sugar or tobacco from Brazil, not to speak of the gold dust and sacks of doubloons and pieces of eight. His black silk flag displayed a death’s head, two cross-bones, an hour-glass and a heart pierced by an arrow from which fell three drops of blood. With that insignia flying, he one day encountered a peaceable ship from Virginia, under the command of a Quaker named Knot. The pious man had neither rum, pistol, cutlass nor saber aboard. He was dressed in a long black coat topped by a broad-brimmed hat of the same color.
“Great God!” exclaimed Kennedy. “Here’s a gay fellow! Now that’s what I like to see. No harm to my friend Captain Knot who wears such a joyful uniform.”
“Amen,” responded Knot, “so be it.”
Then the pirates threw gifts to the Quaker: thirty moidors, ten rolls of Brazilian tobacco and several packets of emeralds. Brother Knot picked up the moidors, the gems and the tobacco.
“These be welcome gifts,” he said, “for they may be put to pious use. Ah, would to heaven all our friends who scour the seas were moved by such sentiments! The Lord accepts all restitutions. These are the flesh of the calf and the limbs of the idol Dagon that you offer, my friends, as sacrifice. Dagon still rules in these wicked lands and his gold brings evil temptations.”
“Dagon be damned,” roared Kennedy. “Great God, shut that snout of yours and have a drink.”
Brother Knot bowed peacefully, though he refused the rum offered him.
“My friends . . he began.
“Great God,” interrupted Kennedy, “call us gentlemen of fortune!”
Friends and gentlemen,” Knot began for a second time, “strong liquors be goads of temptation our feeble flesh cannot endure. As for you, my friends . .
“Gentlemen of fortune, Great God!” corrected Kennedy.
“As for you, friends and fortunate gentlemen,” continued Brother Knot, “you who be hardened by long years of strife against the Tempter, it is possible, nay, even prob¬ able I shall say, that you no longer feel his sting. But we, your friends, should be troubled, gravely troubled.”
“To the devil with your troubles,” said Kennedy. “This man can talk, but I can drink better. He’ll fetch us to Carolina to see his fine friends who probably own some more limbs of the calf,” the pirate went on. “Eh, Captain Dagon?”
“So be it,” agreed the Quaker. “But my name is Knot.”
And he bowed again, the broad brim of his hat shaking in the wind. The Corsaire dropped anchor in a creek well known to the Quaker man, who promised to return and bring his friends.
He did return, that same night, leading a company of military sent by Governor Spotswood of Carolina. The man of God swore to his friends, those fortunate gentlemen, that his only motive was to prevent the introduction of tempting liquors into this profane land.
When the pirates were arrested he said:
“Ah, my friends, how mortified I am that this must be!”
“Great God!” said Kennedy. “Mortified is the word.”
He was put in irons and taken to London for trial. Old Bailey got him. He made his mark on all the questionnaires and on the receipt for his capture. His last discourse was delivered on Execution Dock, where the wind from the sea swayed all the corpses of former gentlemen of fortune, still hanging in their chains.
“Great God! what an honor,” said Kennedy, staring at the dangling cadavers. “They’re going to stick me up beside Captain Kidd. He ain’t got any eyes left, but it’s him all right—who else would be wearng such a grand crimson coat? He was elegant, Kidd was. And he could write. He knew his letters, he did;-me, what a fine hand! Pardon, Captain (he saluted the shriveled corpse in crimson). They, too, were gentlemen of fortune.”
Imaginary Lives
No comments:
Post a Comment