he end of the bowsprit of the vessel he had boarded, and
on whose deck he had discovered the fact, before unknown to him, that a
well-trained, honest man can fight as well as the most reckless
cutthroat who ever decked his beard with ribbons, and swore enmity to
all things good.

Chapter XXIV

A Greenhorn under the Black Flag

Early in the eighteenth century there lived at Bridgetown, in the island
of Barbadoes, a very pleasant, middle-aged gentleman named Major Stede
Bonnet. He was a man in comfortable circumstances, and had been an
officer in the British army. He had retired from military service, and
had bought an estate at Bridgetown, where he lived in comfort and was
respected by his neighbors.

But for some reason or other this quiet and reputable gentleman got it
into his head that he would like to be a pirate. There were some persons
who said that this strange fancy was due to the fact that his wife did
not make his home pleasant for him, but it is quite certain that if a
man wants an excuse for robbing and murdering his fellow-beings he ought
to have a much better one than the bad temper of his wife. But besides
the general reasons why Major Bonnet should not become a pirate, and
which applied to all men as well as himself, there was a special reason
against his adoption of the profession of a sea-robber, for he was an
out-and-out landsman and knew nothing whatever of nautical matters. He
had been at sea but very little, and if he had heard a boatswain order
his man to furl the keel, to batten down the shrouds, or to hoist the
forechains to the topmast yard, he would have seen nothing out of the
way in these commands. He was very fond of history, and very well read
in the literature of the day. He was accustomed to the habits of good
society, and knew a great deal about farming and horses, cows and
poultry, but if he had been compelled to steer a vessel, he would not
have known how to keep her bow ahead of her stern.

But notwithstanding this absolute incapacity for such a life, and the
absence of any of the ordinary motives for abandoning respectability and
entering upon a career of crime, Major Bonnet was determined to become a
pirate, and he became one. He had money enough to buy a ship and to fit
her out and man her, and this he quietly did at Bridgetown, nobody
supposing that he was going to do anything more than start off on some
commercial cruise. When everything was ready, his vessel slippe