Watson

“What do you make of her, Allardyce?” I asked. My second mate was standing beside me upon the poop, with his short, thick legs astretch, for the gale had left a considerable swell behind it, and our two quarter-boats nearly touched the water with every roll. He steadied his glass against the mizzen-shrouds, and he […]

The place was the Eastbourne-Tunbridge road, not very far from the Cross in Hand—a lonely stretch, with a heath running upon either side. The time was half-past eleven upon a Sunday night in the late summer. A motor was passing slowly down the road. It was a long, lean Rolls-Royce, running smoothly with a gentle

It was in the days when France’s power was already broken upon the seas, and when more of her three-deckers lay rotting in the Medway than were to be found in Brest harbour. But her frigates and corvettes still scoured the ocean, closely followed ever by those of her rival. At the uttermost ends of

The Buccaneers were something higher than a mere band of marauders. They were a floating republic, with laws, usages, and discipline of their own. In their endless and remorseless quarrel with the Spaniards they had some semblance of right upon their side. Their bloody harryings of the cities of the Main were not more barbarous

Sharkey, the abominable Sharkey, was out again. After two years of the Coromandel coast, his black barque of death, the Happy Delivery, was prowling off the Spanish Main, while trader and fisher flew for dear life at the menace of that patched fore-topsail, rising slowly over the violet rim of the tropical sea. As the

Careening was a very necessary operation for the old pirate. On his superior speed he depended both for overhauling the trader and escaping the man-of-war. But it was impossible to retain his sailing qualities unless he periodically—once a year, at the least—cleared his vessel’s bottom from the long, trailing plants and crusting barnacles which gather

When the great wars of the Spanish Succession had been brought to an end by the Treaty of Utrecht, the vast number of privateers which had been fitted out by the contending parties found their occupation gone. Some took to the more peaceful but less lucrative ways of ordinary commerce, others were absorbed into the

TALES OF PIRATES I. Captain Sharkey: How the Governor of Saint Kitt’s Came Home II. The Dealings of Captain Sharkey with Stephen Craddock III. The Blighting of Sharkey IV. How Copley Banks Slew Captain Sharkey V. The “Slapping Sal” VI. A Pirate of the Land (One Crowded Hour) TALES OF BLUE WATER VII. The Striped