A Desperate Pirate.

Hastings Standard, Issue 172, 16 November 1896, Page 4

A Desperate Pirate.

—♦ Anion.!,' rise earlier buccaneers who liarriuil the Spani-h main, one of tin--c. "Is V.Bartholomew Portugues. a native of Portugal, as his iruii-' i;!;|>Ii» s. ll'' had iitu-d out a small v- - 1 from Jamaica. with tour p \nrs, and a crew of thirty m< 11. ll>> was cruising '1)1' tlx.* <a[><■ de Corn. : 1 . in Cuba, when he fell in with a »reat ship from Maracaibo and Cartlia- . hound t.j the llavarinah. She earri-d twenty great •. r "in - a nil seventy men. pa --i :r.'' r• and marines. ! !)'• buccaneers In M a council round the mast, and decided t > leave the question of attacking her to the captain. " Nothing venture, nothing have !'* said liar: hoiom •«' : -•> the little vessel started boldly in cha-e of the big one. The Spaniard waited for her. and beat her oil. Bartholomew laid his ve-sel alongside again, fought for five hours ilini'_i his men 011 board, and took the big prize, with a loss of only ten men. and four wounded. 11, ii.id now about tw< my men left to navigate a v i containing forty prisoners. This would not do; so, after stripping the dead, and tos-ing them overboard, lie drove the living Spaniards into one small boat, and turned them adrift, lie and his men then sot to work to repair the damages and rummage their prize. They found the value of it to he about 7">,000 crowns, besides 120.0001b. of cocoa, worth about 5,000 crowns extra.

The wind lx-i n*_J contrary to return to Jamaica, they lived to steer to Cap-' St. Anthony, nt the western end of Cnli.i, tl;. T" to reiair and t.tke in fresh water, of which they stood in great want. But, alas ! they had scarcely hoisted sail to resume their course br-fore they ran into three great ships coming from New Spam and bound for the Ilavannth, who promptly gave chase. The buccaneers, gorged and heavy with plunder, could make no running at all ; the Spaniards culled them like a ripe plum. In an hour or two they were all under hatches, thinking over their probable fate. The vessel containing the unhappy Bartholomew was the iirst to arrive at Campeachy. He was quickly recognised by one of the crowd there. " This is Bartholomew, the Portuguese. the biggest scoundrel in the world, who has done more harm to Spanish trade than all the other pirates put together!" And the amiable merchant who recognised him ran everywhere, demanding his instant execution. The captain of the ship, who had grown rather to like Bartholomew—or, at any rate, was too good a seaman willingly to hand over another seaman to a lot of landlubbers—refused to give him up. Off ran the merchant to the Governor. The Governor listened, sent to demand the buccaneer in the King's name, tore him from his friend's protection, clapped him in inns on board another ship, and gave orders to build a gallows. The execution—there would lie no trial—was to come off next day. Bartholomew heard this pleasing n« vs from a Spanish sailor, who had a nice eye for details, and added that the rope was ready-noosed. Bartholomew saw that no time was to be lost; he contrived, early in the night, to slip out of his irons. Finding in his cabin two of those large carthern jars in which wine was brought from Spain to the Indies, he closed over their mouths. and hung them to his sides with cords; for be could not swim, and it was some distance to the shore. Having made

tho~-e preparations, he waited when all i should be asleep ; but, finding that the sentinel before his door continued wakeful, lie stabbed the f.llow with a kuife that he carried, and let himself noiselessly down over the bulwarks and by the main chains into the sea, floating to land -without a splash or

sound. The shore once ginned, he immediately took to the woo is, where l:e hid him ; if for tlir -e days, eating no other i'..od than wild herbs. Those oi the city next day limited him liigh and low —with bloodhounds, too!—but Bartholomew had expected this, and had purposely chosen his lair in a hollow tree half-covered with witter, where the ihe scent would not lie. From this hollow seven: 1 limes a divv he saw lis enemies pass to and fro. After a day or two the search was abandoned, and Bartholomew began to thiiiiv it high time to push 011 for the (lolfo Triste, 1(50 miles away, where he hoped to find a buccaneer ship careening. He threw a glance back at the lights of the town, and the ship where the black gibbet still awaited him, and he eegan his solitary march, lie had no provisions, or nothing but a small calabash of water ; be found nothing to eat but a few shell-fish among the rocks near the shore ; he had rivers to ero.,s —rivers haunted by alligators — and he did not know how to swim. Ho found an old board, which the waves had tossed ashore, with a few large nails sticking in it; these he pulled out, and sharpened them on a stone till he had made them like knives, though mighty poor knives. \\ ith these, and nothing else, he cut down some brancb.es of trees, which be joined together with _ osiers and twigs into something like a raft, ami 011 this raft he crossed the deepest rivers. W here he could Ibid a ford he flung in stones to scare away ihe alligators, and then rushed across at full speed. At one stage he had to travel for miles swinging by his arms from one bough to another, through a dense mangrove swamp, never once touching the ground. His horrible journey lasted a fortnight; but lie wore though, and coining to the (lolt'e Triste, found a buccaneer vessel lying there. The crew were old messmates of his, newly-arrived from Jamaica. They all listened eagerly to his adventures, and .still more eagerly when he told them that if they chose, be would give them a ship that would make, their fortunes. For his own part, he thought lirst of revenge. He wanted their help, lie only asked for one boat and thirty men. With these he promised to return to Campeachy and capture the Ves>el that bad taken him prisoner but a short while since. They granted bis request ; a boat was (-quipped ; and Bartholomew sailed back aiong the coast, passing for a smuggler carrying contraband goods. In eight days he arrived at lampeachy : boldly and silently steered into the harbor at night, and as boldly and silently crept with his men on board the vessel. The sentinel challenged him. Bartholomew, who spoke excellent

Sji.iiiish, whispered thai they were part of tli' l crew ix li: filing from shore with smuggled goods. The sentinel. hoping perhaps for hush money, did not ivpeat the question. They gave him 110 time to detect the trick, but run a knife into him, and, rushing forward, overpowered the watch. Having cut the c-uhle, they ran below and .surprised the sleeping crew, forced them to surrender, stood out for the open sea, and so siipod oil', 110 vessel pursuing. Tims Bartholomew found himself lord and master of the very vessel on which, scarce more than three weeks before, he had stood a condemned prisoner; ami found her a valuable prize, too, although the Spaniards had disembarked their plate at Campeachy. J Ji• t he was not yet out of the wood. On his way back to Jamaca, as he was passing"the isle of l'inos, on the south of Cuba, a terrible storm arose, which drove his prize upon the Jardines rock, where she went to pieces. Bartholomew and his companions escaped in a canoe to-Jamaica, " where," says Esquemeling, "it was not long ere he went on new adventures, but was never fortunate after." Nothing more is told. "With this our bold searover hoists canvas, and sails away into the unknown.