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It was a
full two weeks from the time that Bartholemy began his
most adventurous and difficult journey before he reached
the little town of Golpho Triste, where, as he had hoped,
he found some of his buccaneer friends. Now that his
hardships and dangers were over, and when, instead of
roots and shellfish, he could sit down to good, plentiful
meals, and stretch himself upon a comfortable bed, it
might have been supposed that Bartholemy would have
given himself a long rest, but this hardy pirate had
no desire for a vacation at this time. Instead of being
worn out and exhausted by his amazing exertions and
semi starvation, he arrived among his friends vigorous
and energetic and exceedingly anxious to recommence
business as soon as possible. He told them of all that
had happened to him, what wonderful good fortune had
come to him, and what terrible bad fortune had quickly
followed it, and when he had related his adventures
and his dangers he astonished even his piratical friends
by asking them to furnish him with a small vessel and
about twenty men, in order that he might go back and
revenge himself, not only for what had happened to him,
but for what would have happened if he had not taken
his affairs into his own hands.
To do daring and astounding deeds is part of the business
of a pirate, and although it was an uncommonly bold
enterprise that Bartholemy contemplated, he got his
vessel and he got his men, and away he sailed. After
a voyage of about eight days he came in sight of the
little seaport town, and sailing slowly along the coast,
he waited until nightfall before entering the harbor.
Anchored at a considerable distance from shore was the
great Spanish ship on which he had been a prisoner,
and from which he would have been taken and hung in
the public square; the sight of the vessel filled his
soul with a savage fury known only to pirates and bull
dogs.
As the little vessel slowly approached the great ship,
the people on board the latter thought it was a trading
vessel from shore, and allowed it to come alongside,
such small craft seldom coming from the sea. But the
moment Bartholemy reached the ship he scrambled up its
side almost as rapidly as he had jumped down from it
with his two wine jars a few weeks before, and every
one of his crew, leaving their own vessel to take care
of itself, scrambled up after him.
Nobody on board was prepared to defend the ship. It
was the same old story; resting quietly in a peaceful
harbor, what danger had they to expect? As usual the
pirates had everything their own way; they were ready
to fight, and the others were not, and they were led
by a man who was determined to take that ship without
giving even a thought to the ordinary alternative of
dying in the attempt. The affair was more of a massacre
than a combat, and there were people on board who did
not know what was taking place until the vessel had
been captured.
As soon as Bartholemy was master of the great vessel
he gave orders to slip the cable and hoist the sails,
for he was anxious to get out of that harbor as quickly
as possible. The fight had apparently attracted no attention
in the town, but there were ships in the port whose
company the bold buccaneer did not at all desire, and
as soon as possible he got his grand prize under way
and went sailing out of the port.
Now, indeed, was Bartholemy triumphant; the ship he
had captured was a finer one and a richer one than that
other vessel which had been taken from him. It was loaded
with valuable merchandise, and we may here remark that
for some reason or other all Spanish vessels of that
day, which were so unfortunate as to be taken by pirates,
seemed to be richly laden.
If our bold pirate had sung wild pirate songs, as he
passed the flowing bowl while carousing with his crew
in the cabin of the Spanish vessel he had first captured,
he now sang wilder songs, and passed more flowing bowls,
for this prize was a much greater one than the first.
If Bartholemy could have communicated his great good
fortune to the other buccaneers in the West Indies,
there would have been a boom in piracy which would have
threatened great danger to the honesty and integrity
of the seafaring men of that region.
But nobody, not even a pirate, has any way of finding
out what is going to happen next, and if Bartholemy
had had an idea of the fluctuations which were about
to occur in the market in which he had made his investments
he would have been in a great hurry to sell all his
stock very much below par. The fluctuations referred
to occurred on the ocean, near the island of Pinos,
and came in the shape of great storm waves, which blew
the Spanish vessel with all its rich cargo, and its
triumphant pirate crew, high up upon the cruel rocks,
and wrecked it absolutely and utterly Bartholemy and
his men barely managed to get into a little boat, and
row themselves away. All the wealth and treasure which
had come to them with the capture of the Spanish vessel,
all the power which the possession of that vessel gave
them, and all the wild joy which came to them with riches
and power, were lost to them in as short a space of
time as it had taken to gain them.
In the way of well-defined and conspicuous ups and downs,
few lives surpassed that of Bartholemy Portuguez. But
after this he seems, in the language of the old English
song, "All in the downs." He had many adventures after
the desperate affair in the bay of Campeachy, but they
must all have turned out badly for him, and, consequently,
very well, it is probable, for divers and sundry Spanish
vessels, and, for the rest of his life, he bore the
reputation of an unfortunate pirate. He was one of those
men whose success seemed to have depended entirely upon
his own exertions. If there happened to be the least
chance of his doing anything, he generally did it; Spanish
cannon, well armed Spanish crews, manacles, imprisonment,
the dangers of the ocean to a man who could not swim,
bloodhounds, alligators, wild beasts, awful forests
impenetrable to common men, all these were bravely met
and triumphed over by Bartholemy.
But when he came to ordinary good fortune, such as any
pirate might expect, Bartholemy the Portuguese found
that he had no chance at all. But he was not a common
pirate, and was, therefore, obliged to be content with
his uncommon career. He eventually settled in the island
of Jamaica, but nobody knows what became of him. If
it so happened that he found himself obliged to make
his living by some simple industry, such as the selling
of fruit upon a street corner, it is likely he never
disposed of a banana or an orange unless he jumped at
the throat of a passer by and compelled him to purchase.
As for sitting still and waiting for customers to come
to him, such a man as Bartholemy would not be likely
to do anything so commonplace.
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