Imaginary LIves Read online

Nearly every evening he called his servants together under a grain shed to read them stories of the great exploits achieved by the pirates of Hispaniola or Turtle Island, for all the gazettes and journals of the day were telling how these men ravaged villages and farms along the coast. The Major read by candlelight, while big blue flies droned around his head.

  “Excellent Vane,” he would cry. “Brave Hornigold, a real horn of plenty full of gold! Sublime Avery, loaded with the jewels of the Great Mogul and the kings of Madagascar! Admirable Teach – you who ruled fourteen wives, one after the other, then got rid of them all – you, Teach, who handed over your last one (she was only sixteen) to your friends every night (out of pure generosity, grandeur of the soul and sheer love of science), at Okerecok, that fine island of yours! How happy are they who follow your wake, who drink their rum with you, Blackbeard, master of the Queen Anne’s Revenge!”

  The Major’s servants listened to these discourses in silent surprise. His only interruptions were soft little noises when small lizards fell down from the roof, the suction grip of their tiny cupped feet loosened by fright. Shielding the candle with his hand, the Major reviewed famous naval maneouvres with the point of his cane, tracing plans and positions among the tobacco leaves on the floor. He threatened the cradle (that was what the pirates called forty strokes of the lash) to any listener who failed to understand and grasp the finesse of those fili-bustering tactics.

  At last Major Stede-Bonnet could resist no longer. He bought an old sloop with ten guns mounted on her, and took on all the essential paraphernalia of piracy, including cutlasses, cross-bows, ladders, planks, grappling hooks, hatches, Bibles (to take oath by), kegs of rum, lanterns, soot for blackening faces, pitch, wicks to burn under the fingernails of rich merchants, a mighty supply of black flags with skulls and cross-bones on them, and the name of the vessel – The Revenge. After driving seventy of his domestic servants aboard to be his pirate crew, he set sail in the night, heading due west with the intention of skirting Saint Vincent, tacking back by way of Yucatan and pillaging all the coast as far as Savannah – where he never arrived.

  Major Stede-Bonnet knew nothing of the sea or its language. Between the compass and the astrolabe he began to lose his reason completely; he confused mizzen with bos’un, the jib with the brig, the foresail with the fo’castle; he called the wheel the keel, said starboard when he meant larboard and aft when he meant abaft. All those strange words and the disquieting motion of the sea combined to upset him until he wished himself safe ashore on his plantation in Barbados, and would probably have returned without further adventure were it not for his glorious desire to raise the skull and cross-bones at sight of the first vessel encountered. He had neglected to put aboard any provisions, counting as he did on ample loot, but since not a single sail was spied the first night, Major Stede-Bonnet decided to attack a village.

  Hailing all his men to the bridge head he handed out the brand-new cutlasses, urging the crew to their utmost ferocity. From a bucket of soot he proceeded to black his own face, commanding the others to follow suit, which they did with some élan.

  Recalling his pirate lore, he judged it best to stimulate his men with a few drinks of some reliable pirate beverage, so he doled out to each one a pint of rum and gunpowder mixed (wine, he knew, was the proper ingredient, but he had none). The servant sailors drank their rations down, though contrary to rule, their faces were not instantly suffused with fury. There was, in fact, a concerted movement both to port and to starboard as they hastened their sooty faces over the rail, offering the mixture to the depths of that villainous sea. By this time The Revenge was all but stranded on the beach of Saint Vincent, so the pirates went staggering ashore.

  It was morning. The astonished faces of the villagers somehow failed to excite a great deal of piratical frenzy; even Major Stede-Bonnet was not overmuch disposed to do violence. He showed his ferocity, however, by purchasing rice, vegetables and salt pork which he paid for (in a noble buccaneer manner, it seemed to him) with two kegs of rum and some old rope. When his crew had humbly pushed The Revenge afloat the Major again set out to sea, proud of his first conquest.

  He sailed all that day and all that night without the faintest notion of what wind propelled him. Towards the dawn of the second day, while he slept propped up against the wheel-house, much discomforted by his cutlass and blunderbuss, Major Stede-Bonnet was aroused by a shout.

  “Sloop ahoy!”

  Rising, he saw another ship standing off at about one cable length. In her prow was a man with a big full beard. A small black flag floated from her pinnacle.

  “Hoist our death flag! hoist our death lag!” commanded the Major hurriedly. As he thought it over, his proper title was the title of a landlubber soldier, so he decided to take a new name immediately, following the illustrious example set by famous leaders of his new profession. He answered without further delay:

  “Sloop The Revenge, commanded by me, Captain Thomas, with my companions in fortune.” The man with the beard burst out laughing.

  “Well met,” he roared. “Comrade, we can both drift awhile. Come, have a go of rum with me aboard The Queen Anne’s Revenge.”

  And Major Stede-Bonnet realized he was about to meet Captain Teach, alias Blackbeard, most famous of all the pirates he had so admired.

  But the Major’s joy was not now as acute as he thought it would be, for he had a notion that he might presently be losing his splendid piratical liberty. He went rather grimly over to Teach who received him with much ceremony, glass in hand.

  “Comrade,” Blackbeard began, you please me infinitely, but your navigating shows no prudence. So if you trust me, Captain Thomas, you will stay here while I send a brave able fellow by the name of Richards to sail your sloop for you. On Blackbeard’s ship you will find all the freedom due a gentleman of fortune.”

  Major Stede-Bonnet dared not refuse. They took away his cutlass and his blunderbuss. He was sworn in on a hatch (Blackbeard could not suffer the sight of a Bible), given his ration of biscuits and rum, promised his share in future prizes. The Major had never dreamed a pirate’s life could be so orderly. When he sailed away from Barbados he had been a gentleman fancying himself a pirate. Now that he was to become a real pirate aboard The Queen Anne’s Revenge, he no longer fancied the life so ardently.

  Submitting to Blackbeard’s rages and the ocean’s terrors he led that existence for three months, assisting his master in thirteen captures; finally returning to his own sloop, The Revenge under Richards’ command. It was a fortunate and prudent change, for the following night Blackbeard was attacked at the entrance of Okerecok Island by Lieutenant Maynard of Bathtown. Blackbeard was killed in the resulting combat and the Lieutenant sailed away with the pirate’s head swinging from his bowsprit.

  For several weeks poor Captain Thomas fled in the direction of South Carolina. Advised of his coming, the governor of Charlestown sent a Colonel Rhet with orders to effect his arrest at the Sullivan Islands. Captain Thomas allowed himself to be taken. Under the name of Major Stede-Bonnet (which he speedily resumed), he was led back to Charlestown in some pomp. Held in jail until November the tenth, 1718, he appeared at that date before a court of the admiralty. Chief Justice Nicholas Trot condemned him to death with the delightful address that follows:

  “Major Stede-Bonnet, you have been convicted on two charges of piracy. In as much as you have pillaged something like thirteen ships you could easily be convicted on eleven additional charges. Two, however, have been found sufficient, for those two are contrary to our divine law, ‘Thou shalt not steal’ (Exodus 20, 15) and the apostle Saint Paul expressly declared: ‘Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God’ (I Corinthians 6, 10). You are further guilty of homicide, and assassins ‘Shall dwell forever in a burning lake of fire and sulphur’ (Apocalypse 21, 8), and ‘shall dwell with the devouring fire’ (Isaiah 33). Ah, Major Stede-Bonnet, I have reason to fear that the religious principles
imbued in your youth have been sadly corrupted by your wicked life and your too nice application to the literature, and the vain philosophy of our time; for had your delight been in ‘The law of the Lord’, had you ‘Meditated upon it night and day’ (Psalms 1, 2), you would have found by now that ‘His word is a lamp unto your feet and a light unto your path’ (Psalms 119, 105.) But since you have not minded this you must fly to the ‘Lamb of God’, ‘which taketh away the sin of the world’ on the promise that ‘Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out’ (Jonah 6, 37). If you return to him now, like the vineyard labourers in the parable of the eleventh hour (Matthew 20, 6, 9), he can yet receive you. But for the present, the court pronounces that you shall be hanged by the neck until you are dead.”

  Major Stede-Bonnet, having listened with all compunction to this discourse by the chief justice, was hanged that same day at Charlestown as a thief and a pirate.

  BURKE AND HARE

  Assassins

  Mr. William Burke rose from the meanest obscurity to eternal renown. Born in Ireland, he started life as a shoemaker, later practicing his trade for several years in Edinburgh where he made the acquaintance of Mr. Hare, on whom he had the greatest influence. In the collaboration of Messrs. Burke and Hare the inventive and analytic powers belonged, no doubt, to Mr. Burke, but their two names remain inseparable in art, as inseparable as the names of Beaumont and Fletcher. Together they lived, together they worked, and they were finally taken together. Mr. Hare never protested against the popular favour particularly attached to the person of Mr. Burke. Disinterestedness so complete seldom has its recompense. It was Mr. Burke who bequeathed his name to the special process that brought the two collaborators into fame. The monosyllable “Burke” will live long on the lips of men, while even now Hare’s personality seems to have disappeared into that oblivion which spreads unjustly over obscure labours.

  Into his work Mr. Burke brought the faerie fancy of the green island where he was born. His soul was evidently steeped in old tales and folklore, and there was something like a far away, musty odour of the Arabian Nights in all he did. Like a caliph pacing a nocturnal garden in Baghdad, he desired mysterious adventures, curious for the glamour of strange people and unknown things.

  Like a huge black slave armed with a heavy scimitar, he found for his voluptuousness no more fitting conclusion than the death of others, but his Anglo-Saxon originality led him to succeed in drawing the most practical ends from his fanciful Celtic prowlings. When his artistic joy is sated what does the black slave do with his headless carcasses? With barbarity entirely Arab, he slices them into quarters and salts them down in the cellar. What good does he get from that? Nothing. Mr. Burke was infinitely superior.

  Somehow Mr. Hare served him as a sort of Dinarzade. It seemed as if the inventive powers of Mr. Burke were especially excited by the presence of his friend. The broad illusion of their dream permitted them to lodge their most pompous visions in a garret. Mr. Hare had a small chamber on the sixth floor of a tall house filled very full of Edinburghers. A sofa, a large desk and several toilet utensils were undoubtedly all the furnishings, including a bottle of whisky with three glasses on a little table. It was Mr. Burke’s rule to invite some passerby at nightfall, but he never received more than one at a time and never twice the same. He would walk through the streets examining all faces that piqued his curiosity. Frequently he chose at random, addressing the stranger with as much politeness as one could ask of a Haroun al Raschid.

  The stranger would then stumble up six flights of stairs to Mr. Hare’s garret where they gave him the sofa and offered him Scotch whisky to drink. Then Mr. Burke would ask him about the most surprising incidents of his life. He was an insatiable listener, was Mr. Burke. The stranger’s recital was always interrupted before daybreak by Mr. Hare, whose manner of interrupting was invariably the same and very impressive. He had a habit of passing behind the sofa and putting his hands over the speaker’s mouth while Mr. Burke would suddenly sit down on the gentleman’s chest at the same moment. The two of them would remain thus, motionless, imagining the conclusion they never heard. In this manner Messrs. Burke and Hare terminated a large number of histories the world has never learned. When the tale was definitely stopped with the suffocation of the teller, they would explore the mystery, stripping the unknown man, admiring his jewelry, counting his money, reading his letters. Certain items of correspondence were often not without interest. Then they would lay the corpse away to cool in Mr. Hare’s big desk.

  And now Mr. Burke would demonstrate the practical force of his genius. To waste none of the adventure’s pleasure, he held that the body should be fresh but not warm.

  In the first years of the nineteenth century medical students had a passion for anatomy, though religious prejudices made it difficult for them to secure subjects for dissection. Mr. Burke’s clear mind had taken note of this scientific dilemma. No one knows how he first established an alliance with that venerable and learned practitioner, Dr. Knox, of the faculty of Edinburgh. Perhaps Mr. Burke had followed his public lectures in spite of the fact that his imagination inclined rather to artistic things. It is certain, however, that he promised to aid Dr. Knox as best he could, and that Dr. Knox agreed to pay him for his pains. The scale of prices varied, declining from the choice corpses of young men to the less desirable remains of the aged. The latter interested Dr. Knox only moderately and Mr. Burke held the same opinion, for old men, he claimed, always had less imagination. Dr. Knox came to be known among his colleagues for his splendid knowledge of anatomy. This dilettante life, led so enjoyably by Messrs. Burke and Hare, brought them to what was certainly the classic period of their career.

  For the power of Mr. Burke’s genius soon led him beyond rules and regulations of a tragedy in which he had always a story to listen to and a confidence to keep. Alone he progressed (it is useless to consider the influence of Mr. Hare) towards a sort of romanticism. No longer satisfied with the setting provided by Mr. Hare’s garret, he invented a procedure to make use of the nocturnal fogs.

  Numerous imitators have somewhat sullied the originality of his manner, but here is the veritable tradition of the master.

  Mr. Burke’s fertile imagination had grown weary of tales eternally reverting to human experiences. The result never equaled his expectation. So he came at last to value only the actual aspect of death... for him unfailingly varied.

  He concentrated his drama in the dénouement. The quality of the actors no longer mattered; he trained them at random, and his only property of the theatre was a canvas mask filled with pitch. Mask in hand, he would walk out on foggy nights accompanied by Mr. Hare. Approaching the first individual who chanced to pass, he would walk a few steps in front, then turn and place the mask quickly and firmly over the subject’s face. Immediately Messrs. Burke and Hare would grasp the arms of their actor, one on each side. The mask full of pitch presented simply a genial instrument for stifling cries and strangling. It was tragic. The fog muffled the gestures of the rôle and softened them. Some of the actors seemed to mimic drunken men. This short scene over, Messrs. Burke and Hare would take a cab in which they would disrobe their guest, Mr. Hare caring for the costumes while Mr. Burke delivered the cadaver fresh and clean to Dr. Knox.

  Unlike most biographers it is here I leave Messrs. Burke and Hare, at the peak of their glory.

  Why destroy such an artistic effect by requiring them to languish along to the end of their lives, revealing their defects and their deceptions? We need only remember them, mask in hand, walking abroad on foggy nights. For their end was sordid like so many others. One of them, it appears, was hanged and Dr. Knox was forced to quit Edinburgh.

  Mr. Burke left no other works.

  Table of Contents

  IMAGINARY LIVES

  credits

  INTRODUCTION

  AUTHOR’S PREFACE

  EMPEDOCLES

  EROSTRAT

  CRATES

  SEPTIMA

  LUCRETIUS


  CLODIA

  PETRONIUS

  SUFRAH

  FRA DOLCINO

  CECCO ANGIOLIERI

  PAOLO UCCELLO

  NICOLAS LOYSELEUR

  KATHERINE THE LACEMAKER

  ALAIN THE GENTLE

  GABRIEL SPENCER

  POCAHONTAS

  CYRIL TOURNEUR

  WILLIAM PHIPS

  CAPTAIN KIDD

  WALTER KENNEDY

  MAJOR STEDE-BONNET

  BURKE AND HARE

  BACK COVER

  Table of Contents

  IMAGINARY LIVES

  credits

  INTRODUCTION

  AUTHOR’S PREFACE

  EMPEDOCLES

  EROSTRAT

  CRATES

  SEPTIMA

  LUCRETIUS

  CLODIA

  PETRONIUS

  SUFRAH

  FRA DOLCINO

  CECCO ANGIOLIERI

  PAOLO UCCELLO

  NICOLAS LOYSELEUR

  KATHERINE THE LACEMAKER