Howard Pyle's
Book of Pirates
Fiction, Fact & Fancy concerning the Buccaneers & Marooners of the Spanish Main: From the writing & Pictures of Howard Pyle: Compiled by Merle Johnson
Harper & Brothers Publishers
New York & London
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CONTENTS
PAGE
FOREWORD BY MERLE JOHNSON xi
PREFACE xiii
I. BUCCANEERS AND MAROONERS OF THE SPANISH MAIN 3
II. THE GHOST OF CAPTAIN BRAND 39
III. WITH THE BUCCANEERS 75
IV. TOM CHIST AND THE TREASURE BOX 99
V. JACK BALLISTER'S FORTUNES 129
VI. BLUESKIN, THE PIRATE 150
VII. CAPTAIN SCARFIELD 187
VIII. THE RUBY OF KISHMOOR 210
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ILLUSTRATIONS
AN ATTACK ON A GALLEON Frontispiece
ON THE TOTUGAS Facing p. 6
CAPTURE OF THE GALLEON " 10
HENRY MORGAN RECRUITING FOR THE ATTACK " 14
MORGAN AT PORTO BELLO " 16
THE SACKING OF PANAMA " 20
MAROONED " 26
BLACKBEARD BURIES HIS TREASURE " 32
WALKING THE PLANK " 36
"CAPTAIN MALYOE SHOT CAPTAIN BRAND THROUGH THE HEAD" " 40
"SHE WOULD SIT QUITE STILL, PERMITTING BARNABY TO GAZE" " 68
BURIED TREASURE " 76
KIDD ON THE DECK OF THE "ADVENTURE GALLEY" " 85
BURNING THE SHIP " 92
WHO SHALL BE CAPTAIN? " 104
KIDD AT GARDINER'S ISLAND " 108
EXTORTING TRIBUTE FROM THE CITIZENS " 116
"PIRATES USED TO DO THAT TO THEIR CAPTAINS NOW AND THEN" " 124
"JACK FOLLOWED THE CAPTAIN AND THE YOUNG LADY UP THE CROOKED PATH TO THE HOUSE" " 132
"HE LED JACK UP TO A MAN WHO SAT UPON A BARREL" " 136
"THE BULLETS WERE HUMMING AND SINGING, CLIPPING ALONG THE TOP OF THE WATER" " 142
"THE COMBATANTS CUT AND SLASHED WITH SAVAGE FURY" " 146
SO THE TREASURE WAS DIVIDED " 154
COLONEL RHETT AND THE PIRATE " 162
THE PIRATE'S CHRISTMAS " 174
"HE LAY SILENT AND STILL, WITH HIS FACE HALF BURIED IN THE SAND" " 182
"THERE CAP'N GOLDSACK GOES, CREEPING, CREEPING, CREEPING, LOOKING FOR HIS TREASURE DOWN BELOW!" " 186
"HE HAD FOUND THE CAPTAIN AGREEABLE AND COMPANIONABLE" " 190
THE BUCCANEER WAS A PICTURESQUE FELLOW " 196
THEN THE REAL FIGHT BEGAN " 200
"HE STRUCK ONCE AND AGAIN AT THE BALD, NARROW FOREHEAD BENEATH HIM" " 206
CAPTAIN KEITT " 212
HOW THE BUCCANEERS KEPT CHRISTMAS " 224
THE BURNING SHIP " 236
DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES " 240
"I AM THE DAUGHTER OF THAT UNFORTUNATE CAPTAIN KEITT" " 244
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FOREWORD
Pirates, Buccaneers, Marooners, those cruel but picturesque sea wolves who once infested the Spanish Main, all live in present-day conceptions in great degree as drawn by the pen and pencil of Howard Pyle.
Pyle, artist-author, living in the latter half of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth, had the fine faculty of transposing himself into any chosen period of history and making its people flesh and blood again--not just historical puppets. His characters were sketched with both words and picture; with both words and picture he ranks as a master, with a rich personality which makes his work individual and attractive in either medium.
He was one of the founders of present-day American illustration, and his pupils and grand-pupils pervade that field to-day. While he bore no such important part in the world of letters, his stories are modern in treatment, and yet widely read. His range included historical treatises concerning his favorite Pirates (Quaker though he was); fiction, with the same Pirates as principals; Americanized version of Old World fairy tales; boy stories of the Middle Ages, still best sellers to growing lads; stories of the occult, such as In Tenebras and To the Soil of the Earth, which, if newly published, would be hailed as contributions to our latest cult.
In all these fields Pyle's work may be equaled, surpassed, save in one. It is improbable that anyone else will ever bring his combination of interest and talent to the depiction of these old-time Pirates, any more than there could be a second Remington to paint the now extinct Indians and gun-fighters of the Great West.
Important and interesting to the student of history, the adventure-lover, and the artist, as they are, these Pirate stories and pictures have been scattered through many magazines and books. Here, in this volume, they are gathered together for the first time, perhaps not just as Mr. Pyle would have done, but with a completeness and appreciation of the real value of the material which the author's modesty might not have permitted.
MERLE JOHNSON.