sland were five or six
hundred pirates, and ships flying the black flag were continually
arriving or departing. The streets resounded with shouts of revelry,
with curses, and with the cries of rage. Strong drinks were freely
used. Drunkenness was everywhere. It was no uncommon thing for a
hogshead of wine to be opened, and left standing in the streets, that
any might drink who chose. The pirates, flush with their ill-gotten
gains, spent money on gambling and kindred vices lavishly. The women
who accompanied them to this lawless place were decked out with
barbaric splendor in silks and jewels. On the arrival of a ship, the
debauchery was unbounded. Such noted pirates as Blackbeard, Steed
Bonnet, and Avary made the place their rendezvous, and brought thither
their rich prizes and wretched prisoners. Blackbeard was one of the
most desperate pirates of the age. He, with part of his crew, once
terrorized the officials of Charleston, S.C., exacting tribute of
medicines and provisions. Finally he was killed in action, and sixteen
of his desperate gang expiated their crimes on the gallows.

To Madagascar, too, often came the two female pirates, Mary Read and
Anne Bonny. These women, masquerading in men's clothing, were as
desperate and bloody as the men by whose side they fought. By a
strange coincidence, these two women enlisted on the same ship. Each
knowing her own sex, and being ignorant of that of the other, they
fell in love; and the final discovery of their mutual deception
increased their intimacy. After serving with the pirates, working at
the guns, swinging a cutlass in the boarding parties, and fighting a
duel in which she killed her opponent, Mary Read determined to escape.
There is every evidence that she wearied of the evil life she was
leading, and was determined to quit it; but, before she could carry
her intentions into effect, the ship on which she served was captured,
and taken to England, where the pirates expiated their crimes on the
gallows, Mary Read dying in prison before the day set for her
execution.

After some months spent in licentious revelry at Madagascar, Kidd set
out on a further cruise. During this voyage he learned that he had
been proscribed as a pirate, and a price set on his head. Strange as
it may appear, this news was a surprise to him. He seems to have
deceived himself into thinking that his acts of piracy were simply the
legitimate work of a privateersman. For a time he knew not what