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Page 19
"Exactly, and we'll have to pay the milliners. That is what bothers me. I
was going to lead this expedition to London, Paris, and New York, admiral.
That is where the money is, and to get it you've got to go ashore, to
headquarters. You cannot nowadays find it on the high seas. Modern
civilization," said Kidd, "has ruined the pirate's business. The latest
news from the other world has really opened my eyes to certain facts that
I never dreamed of. The conditions of the day of which I speak are
interestingly shown in the experience of our friend Hawkins here. Captain
Hawkins, would you have any objection to stating to these gentlemen the
condition of affairs which led you to give up piracy on the high seas?"
"Not the slightest, Captain Kidd," returned Captain Hawkins, who was a
recent arrival in Hades. "It is a sad little story, and it gives me a pain
for to think on it, but none the less I'll tell it, since you ask me. When
I were a mere boy, fellow-pirates, I had but one ambition, due to my
readin', which was confined to stories of a Sunday-school nater--to become
somethin' different from the little Willies an' the clever Tommies what I
read about therein. They was all good, an' they went to their reward too
soon in life for me, who even in them days regarded death as a stuffy an'
unpleasant diversion. Learnin' at an early period that virtue was its only
reward, an' a-wish-in' others, I says to myself: 'Jim,' says I, 'if you
wishes to become a magnet in this village, be sinful. If so be as you are
a good boy, an' kind to your sister an' all other animals, you'll end up
as a prosperous father with fifteen hundred a year sure, with never no
hope for no public preferment beyond bein' made the superintendent of the
Sunday-school; but if so be as how you're bad, you may become famous, an'
go to Congress, an' have your picture in the Sunday noospapers.' So I
looks around for books tellin' how to get 'Famous in Fifty Ways,' an'
after due reflection I settles in my mind that to be a pirate's just the
thing for me, seein' as how it's both profitable an' healthy. Passin' over
details, let me tell you that I became a pirate. I ran away to sea, an' by
dint of perseverance, as the Sunday-school books useter say, in my badness
I soon became the centre of a evil lot; an' when I says to 'em, 'Boys, I
wants to be a pirate chief,' they hollers back, loud like, 'Jim, we're
with you,' an' they was. For years I was the terror of the Venezuelan
Gulf, the Spanish Main, an' the Pacific seas, but there was precious
little money into it. The best pay I got was from a Sunday noospaper,
which paid me well to sign an article on 'Modern Piracy' which I didn't
write. Finally business got so bad the crew began to murmur, an' I was at
my wits' ends to please 'em; when one mornin', havin' passed a restless
night, I picks up a noospaper and sees in it that 'Next Saturday's steamer
is a weritable treasure-ship, takin' out twelve million dollars, and the
jewels of a certain prima donna valued at five hundred thousand.' 'Here's
my chance,' says I, an' I goes to sea and lies in wait for the steamer. I
captures her easy, my crew bein' hungry, an' fightin' according like. We
steals the box a-hold-in' the jewels an' the bag containin' the millions,
hustles back to our own ship, an' makes for our rondyvoo, me with two
bullets in my leg, four o' my crew killed, and one engin' of my ship
disabled by a shot--but happy. Twelve an' a half millions at one break is
enough to make anybody happy."
"I should say so," said Abeuchapeta, with an ecstatic shake of his head.
"I didn't get that in all my career."
"Nor I," sighed Kidd. "But go on, Hawkins."
"Well, as I says," continued Captain Hawkins, "we goes to the rondyvoo to
look over our booty. 'Captain 'Awkins,' says my valet--for I was a swell
pirate, gents, an' never travelled nowhere without a man to keep my
clothes brushed and the proper wrinkles in my trousers--'this 'ere twelve
millions,' says he, 'is werry light,' says he, carryin' the bag ashore. 'I
don't care how light it is, so long as it's twelve millions, Henderson,'
says I; but my heart sinks inside o' me at his words, an' the minute we
lands I sits down to investigate right there on the beach. I opens the
bag, an' it's the one I was after--but the twelve millions!"
"Weren't there?" cried Conrad.
"Yes, they was there," sighed Hawkins, "but every bloomin' million was
represented by a certified check, an' payable in London!"
[Illustration: "'EVERY BLOOMIN' MILLION WAS REPRESENTED BY A CERTIFIED
CHECK, AN' PAYABLE IN LONDON'"]
"By Jingo!" cried Morgan. "What fearful luck! But you had the prima
donna's jewels."
"Yes," said Hawkins, with a moan. "But they was like all other prima
donna's jewels--for advertisin' purposes only, an' made o' gum-arabic!"
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