The Sandman: His Ship Stories  by Willliam J. Hopkins

The Pirate Story

NCE upon a time there was a wide river that ran into the ocean, and beside it was a little city. And in that city was a wharf where great ships came from far countries. And a narrow road led down a very steep hill to that wharf, and anybody that wanted to go to the wharf had to go down the steep hill on the narrow road, for there wasn't any other way. And because ships had come there for a great many years, and all the sailors and all the captains and all the men who had business with the ships had to go on that narrow road, the flagstones that made the sidewalks were much worn. That was a great many years ago.

The river and the ocean are there yet, as they always have been and always will be; and the city is there, but it is a different kind of a city from what it used to be. And the wharf is slowly falling down, for it is not used now; and the narrow road down the steep hill is all grown up with weeds and grass.

One day, in the long ago, the brig Industry  lay at that wharf, and she was all loaded and ready for another voyage to the far country. She had made one voyage, and had been refitted as much as she needed to be, and she had some new sails and new rigging; but Captain Solomon had not got his crew yet, and he hadn't put aboard the things to eat and the water that they would drink. For the sailors all go away when a ship has finished a voyage and got in to the wharf, so that there isn't any crew; and when the ship is ready to sail again, the owners of the ship have to find some more sailors for that voyage, and the sailors all have to sign a paper agreeing to help sail the ship until she gets in again.

And so it happened that Captain Jonathan and Captain Jacob had advertised that the Industry  would soon sail for the far country, and that they wanted sailors for her; and they did that by posting printed notices about that part of the city where the sailors live. But some of the sailors were men who lived at their homes when they were ashore, and they liked to sail in the Industry  and had watched her being loaded, so that they knew when the time came for signing the crew. And the mates had been picked out before that time came.

So, one morning, there was a great crowd of men in the office of Captain Jonathan and Captain Jacob. Captain Jonathan was there, and Captain Jacob, and Captain Solomon, who would command the ship; and the mates were there, both the first mate and the second mate. And, besides these, there were all the men who wanted to be the sailors. And Captain Solomon remembered all the men who had sailed with him before, and he engaged those men first, and they signed the papers. And then he picked out, from among all the other men, those who seemed the biggest and the strongest and those who looked as if they drank the least; for sailors are very apt to get drunk when they have the chance. They don't have the chance when they are on the ship, but whenever they go ashore they have the chance, and those sailors who get drunk can't work very well for a day or two after.

So Captain Solomon got his crew, and the other men, that he didn't want, he sent away. And he told the crew to get their things and come the next day, because the Industry  would sail very early on the morning after, at high tide.

Then he had all the things that they would eat put in the ship, and the water they would drink. And they put two little cannon aboard and the ammunition for the cannon. And they put a lot of guns aboard and the ammunition for the guns. But Captain Solomon had all the guns put in his cabin, with the ammunition, for he didn't want them to be where the sailors could get them, until he was ready to give them to the sailors. And the cannon he put in the hold until he should be ready to have them brought on deck.

The reason that the cannon and the guns were put on the ship was that Captain Jonathan and Captain Jacob had told Captain Solomon that they wanted him to stop at a certain place on his way to the far country; and, to stop there, he would have to go past the parts of a small ocean where pirates lived. Many of the people of that country made their living by being pirates, and some great nations paid those people money every year to let their vessels alone. But, when the pirates found a vessel sailing all by herself, they were very apt to think that it would never be known how she was lost if none of the crew came back home again. And they would capture that ship, if they could, and kill all the sailors or sell them to be slaves. So Captain Solomon asked Captain Jonathan and Captain Jacob for the cannon and the guns.

And the crew of the Industry  came the next day, as they had been told to. And, the morning after, at high tide, the ship sailed away from that wharf and out into the great ocean. But Captain Jonathan was not there, to see her go, nor Captain Jacob nor Lois; for it was much too early to be convenient for them. And the wind blew, and it was a fair wind for many days, and not a great wind. And the Industry  set all her sails and sailed away over the great ocean for many days; but she did not get to the part of the ocean where it is calm, for she turned in towards Gibraltar.

And when she was a day's sailing from Gibraltar Captain Solomon had the cannon brought up from the hold, and he had them mounted on the deck, one of them in the fore part of the ship, and one of them in the after part. And he had the ammunition for the cannon brought up, and stowed where it would be easy to get at it. Then he had the guns brought out of his cabin, and the ammunition for them. And he looked over the guns very carefully, to see that they were all right, and he had the guns put where the crew could get them. Then he called the crew together and told them about the pirates. And the sailors were a little excited, but not as much as you would have expected, and they hoped, in their hearts, that the pirates would come.

Captain Solomon kept two sailors up in the crosstrees, one on the mainmast and one on the foremast, to look out over the water and see any vessel that was coming. And they kept a sharp lookout, but they didn't see anything. Captain Solomon kept those men there, looking out over the ocean, only two hours, and then he told them to come down and he sent two others up in their places. For he didn't want them to get sleepy, because they had to stay up there too long with nothing to do but to look out and see the ocean and the waves tossing. And they kept a lookout all that night and didn't see anything; but, very early in the morning, when it was just beginning to be light enough to see about them, the sailor in the main crosstrees called out:

"Ahoy! The deck!"

And as soon as he had called, the sailor in the fore crosstrees called out, too.

And the first mate answered and said, "In the crosstrees." For Captain Solomon had stayed up all night, and he had gone into his cabin to get a little nap.

"Sail on the weather bow!" said the sailor in the main crosstrees. "Hull down. Can you see it from the deck, sir?"

And the mate looked where the sailor had said, and he saw just the peak of a sail that looked as if it was sticking up out of the water. If you live near the water in the summer, and that water is wide enough, you can see just the tops of the sails of vessels when you can't see any of the lower part of them, and you will know how it looked.

"Yes," answered the mate; "but I can't make it out. What rig is it?"

"Looks like a lateen, sir."

"I'll come up," said the mate. So he told one of the sailors to go down and call the captain, and he took the long glass under his arm and climbed up the rigging. The long glass made things that are far away look bigger to anyone that looked through it, and it pulled out until it was about four feet long.

And when the mate had got into the crosstrees, he looked through the long glass and he saw the sail plainly, and saw that it was a lateen rig, but he couldn't see any of the hull of the vessel, because that was down behind the roundness of the world. A lateen rig is a queer kind of rig that was used by the people that were pirates. And the mate looked a long time, and then he shut up the glass again.

"Them's um," he said, and he was smiling as he said it. "Call all hands!"

But it wasn't necessary to call all hands, because all of the sailors had crowded up on deck as soon as they heard of the strange sail. One of the sailors that was on watch had stuck his head down into the forecastle where the sailors sleep, and had shouted out the news. And Captain Solomon had run up the cabin steps, three steps at a time, and he was already half-way up to the crosstrees.

And Captain Solomon looked through the long glass and he saw that the strange sail was the kind that the pirates use. So he went down to the deck again, and the mate followed him. But he left the sailor in the crosstrees, to watch the vessel. And Captain Solomon told the mate to get the men together, and to tell off certain ones of them to man the forward cannon, and certain others to man the after cannon; and he was to see that the guns were given out, and ammunition for them. And the mate did all that, and the men who manned the cannon got out the powder and the shot for them, and piled it on the deck near the cannon.

Then Captain Solomon told the ship's cook to stir up his fire, and to go to work heating water, as much as he could get in all his great soup kettles. And the cook did that, and before long he had five great kettles of water boiling over the fire, and there was a great steam coming out of the galley.

And Captain Solomon had the sailors shoulder their guns, and walk back and forth on the side of the ship that was nearest the pirates, and he had the sailors who manned the cannon stand in plain sight; and he had the course of the ship changed so that she headed almost directly for the pirates. The pirates had got pretty near by that time, and they were not more than two miles away. And two miles, on the water, is not very far.

When the pirates saw the Industry  change her course and head directly for them, they did not know what to make of it; for they had expected her to try to run away. They thought that perhaps she was a warship, for she was painted like one, with a white stripe around her, and black squares on the white stripe, as if the black squares were places where the cannon were. So they hesitated for a few moments, and then they changed their course, to try to get around her and see more of her. And Captain Solomon let them get around a little, so that they could see the black squares all around, on the white stripe, and so they could see the sailors walking back and forth, with their guns, and the sailors who manned the cannon.

And the pirates saw all those men and their guns, and they couldn't make up their minds what kind of a ship that was. A great many ships were painted like that, to look like warships, but not many ships had so many men with guns and not many ships had cannon. So they changed their course again, and presently the Industry  changed her course, too, so that, if the two vessels kept on, they would sail past each other, and very near. And that was just what the pirates wanted. For, if they thought it was safe to do so, they could suddenly put their vessel alongside the Industry, and they had a lot of men lying down where they couldn't be seen by Captain Solomon or any of his sailors, and those men were all ready to jump up and get aboard the Industry, with knives and pistols. And, if they decided that wasn't safe, they could sail past. For the pirates' boat was much faster than the Industry.

But Captain Solomon was up to all their tricks, and that was the very thing that he had told the cook to heat the water for; for the sides of the Industry  were high, while the pirates' boat was low, and the pirates would have nothing to hold on to, in climbing up the steep sides. And he could have the sailors empty the kettles of boiling water on their heads while they were climbing up.

And the pirates came near and hailed the Industry, and asked if Captain Solomon didn't want a pilot. And Captain Solomon didn't understand, and made them say it over three or four times, and the course of the Industry  was changed again, so that she was almost directly astern of the pirates' boat, and with her side toward it. Captain Solomon hoped that the pirates wouldn't make him change his course any more, for he couldn't very well, with the wind the way it was. And the pirates kept asking Captain Solomon if he didn't want a pilot, and at last he understood. He gave a great laugh, and had the sailors all aim their guns at the pirates.

That was a sign that the pirates needn't try any more of their tricks, and they decided that it wasn't very safe to try to get aboard and they guessed they wouldn't. So they began to sail away. But, as soon as they thought they were far enough off, they took the cover off of a cannon and fired a shot at the Industry. And this shot went a little too high, and it went through one of the sails and cut away some ropes, but it didn't hit anybody and didn't do much damage. But it made Captain Solomon very angry.

"Let 'em have it, boys!" he cried.

And the sailors that manned the two cannon were eager for the chance, and this was just what they had been waiting for. As soon as Captain Solomon had spoken, they fired the two cannon, almost at the same time, so that no one could tell which was fired first. And the two shots flew and the sailors watched them go. They both struck the pirates' boat, and one of them went through the side, so that the water came in very fast; and the other struck one of the masts, and cut it in two pieces, so that the top, with the sail and the great yard, fell over into the water.

They both struck the pirates' boat.

Then the sailors of the Industry  raised a great yell and would have liked to go near the pirates' boat and fire at it some more. But Captain Solomon wouldn't. He was afraid that he might have to rescue the pirates if their boat sank, and he didn't want a lot of rescued pirates on the Industry.

So he bore off for Gibraltar again. And the sailors looked back, and they saw the pirates, how some of them were busy in clearing away the wreckage of the mast and the sail while others tried to empty out the water as fast as it came in. And whether they succeeded in doing that or not, they never knew; for they were soon out of sight, and that was the last that they saw of those pirates.

And that's all.