And Providence did, for a time, singularly interpose. As they were one day sailing by a small island, called Joanna, they saw the wreck of a ship on shore. Captain Kidd took a boat and was rowed to the land, where he found that it was a French vessel. The crew had escaped, having saved quite a quantity of gold. The ship and cargo were a total loss. The Frenchman, so the narrative goes, _loaned_ this gold to Captain Kidd. Perhaps he did. It is more probable that it was a forced loan. Captain Kidd had, as we have mentioned, a double commission, one against the pirates, and the other a regular commission as a privateersman against the French. Had he captured the ship before the wreck it would have been his lawful prize. It is hardly probable that he had any scruples of conscience in seizing the doubloons when transferred to the shore. With this gold he sailed to one of the ports on the Malabar coast, where he purchased food sufficient for a few weeks only. There was, at that time, in Asia, one of the most powerful nations on the globe, called the Mongols. The emperor, who was almost divinely worshipped, was titled the Great Mogul. His gorgeous palaces were reared in the city of Samarcand, in the province of Bokhara. This magnificent city, thirty miles in circumference, glittered with palaces and mosques of gorgeous architecture, constructed of white marble. The empire was founded by the world-renowned Gengis Khan, and extended by the equally celebrated Tamerlane. The sails of Mongol commerce whitened all the East-Indian seas. Piracy then so abounded that this commerce was generally carried on in fleets under convoy. Upon this cruise of disappointment and anxiety, Captain Kidd passed several of the ships of the Great Mogul. He looked upon them with a wistful eye. They were merchantmen. With his force he could easily capture them. There could be no doubt that they contained treasure of great value. There was loud murmuring among the crew. They could not understand those scruples of conscience which would allow them to plunder a few shipwrecked Frenchmen, and yet would turn aside from the rich argosies of the East. But Captain Kidd, a respectable New-York merchant, held in high esteem by the community, and who had been sent on this expedition expressly to capture and punish the pirates, was not then prepared to raise himself the black flag, and thus join the robbers of the seas. The struggle, in his mind, was probably very severe. He was daily growing more desperate. Starvation stared him in the face. His crew was growing mutinous. He had reason to fear that they would rise, throw him overboard or land him upon some island, and then, raising the black flag of the pirate, scour the seas on their own account, and join the riotous band defiantly established at Madagascar.