is said of Morgan that he had a fire ship, which he would tow
as close as possible to the fleets of his enemies, both to draw
their fire and kindle a more disastrous one. What appeared to be
its crew were logs of wood, placed upright between the bulwarks,
each log surmounted by a hat. As to fire, it is recorded that Teach,
or Blackbeard, now and then shut himself into his cabin and burned
sulphur to prove to his crew that he was a devil. He used to tie his
whiskers with red ribbons into pigtails that he tucked over his ears,
and he looked the part. Yet he was less of a monster than L'Olonnais,
who so hated Spaniards that he would not only slaughter his prisoners,
but would bite their hearts like a savage beast after he had cut them
out. Beside Blackbeard there was a Redbeard and a Bluebeard. All three
of these gentlemen had castles in St. Thomas, and that of Bluebeard
had a room in which it is alleged that he killed his wives after the
fashion of his Eastern relative.

The Boat of Phantom Children

Sir Francis Drake, destroyer of many of the "invincible" ships of
Spain, came to America with Sir John Hawkins, to subdue the Spanish
colonies with the heaviest fleet he ever commanded. Though wrangles
between the commanders made this expedition a comparative failure,
still wherever the head of a don was seen, a cracking blow was struck
at it. War was a crueller business then than it is to-day, in spite
of our high explosives, our armored ships, our mighty guns, and our
nimble tactics, and things were done that no captain would dare in
these times; at least, no captain with a fear of the world's rebuke,
or that of his own conscience. Just before Christmas, 1594, Drake
was scourging the coast of Colombia, burning houses, and shipping
and despoiling the towns. The people of one village near Rio de la
Hache, having been warned of his coming, buried their little property,
closed their houses, put fifty of their children on a fishing smack,
while they hurriedly provisioned some boats to carry all the people to
a distant cape, where they would remain in hiding until after Drake
had destroyed their homes and passed on. The fisherman who owned the
smack set sail too soon; he was separated from the others in a gale,
and Drake, who then appeared, ran between him and the shore, and with
a couple of shots drove him farther into the wild sea. The smack never
returned. After the English had passed, the people watched for it,
a