It was no man's body that went overboard on that night, but merely a
mighty beam of wood that one of Jensen's confederates cast over the
vessel's side just before he raised the cry of 'Man overboard!' Jensen
himself was snugly concealed in the innermost parts of the ship, where
he lay close, laughing in his sleeve at us and our credulity. After we
left he came out of his hole and made his way to Early Island, as agreed
upon with his companions, who, on his arrival, butchered the most of the
colonists.
One mystery was disposed of. So was the other mystery--how Jensen and
his men came to be so well-armed and so gaily attired. When our
expedition was preparing, Captain Marmaduke commissioned Jensen to buy a
store of all manner of agricultural and household implements and
utensils for the use of the young colony. Now, as such gear was not
likely to be of service to Jensen in his piracies, he was at pains to
serve his own ends while he pretended to obey the Captain's commands.
He had therefore made up and committed to the hold a quantity of cases
which professed to contain what the Captain had commanded. But never a
spade or pick, never a roasting-jack or flat-iron, never a string of
beads or a mirror for barter with natives was to be found in all those
boxes. If our colony had ever by any chance arrived at their goal they
would have found themselves in sore straits for the means of tilling the
earth and of cooking their food.
The boxes contained instead a great quantity of arms, such as muskets
and pistols and cutlasses, together with abundance of ammunition in the
shape of powder, bullets and shot. Others of those boxes contained
goodlier gear, for Jensen was a vain rogue as well as a clever rogue,
and dearly loved brave colours about him and to make a gaudy show. I
believe that it was a passion for power and the pomp that accompanies
power more than anything else which drove him to be a pirate, and that
if he could have been, say, a great Minister of State, who is, after
all, often only another kind of pirate, he might have carried himself
very well and been looked upon by the world at large as a very decent,
public-spirited sort of fellow. I have known men in high office with
just such passion for display and dominion as Jensen, and I do not think
that there is much to choose between him and them in that regard.
So sundry of those lying boxes were loaded with gay clothing, such as
those scarlet coats with which we had now made acquaintance, and which
were fashioned on the pattern of those of the bodyguard of His Majesty,
only much more flauntingly tricked out with gold lace and gilded
buttons. It added a shade of darkness to the treachery of this scoundrel
that he should thus presume to parade himself in a parody of such a
uniform.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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