Fanny Campbell, The Female Pirate Captain. Ballou Maturin Murray
arms, all spoke of a voluptuousness of person, and yet within the most delicate rule of beauty. A painter should have seen her there, her person modestly veiled yet displaying her form in most ravishing distinctness; her breast heaving with emotions, and her hands clasped and raised towards Heaven. Her features were after the Grecian school, with a coral lip that melted an anchorite. Where Fanny got those eyes from, Heaven only knows, they rivalled a Circassian’s. Nature seemed to have delighted in ornamenting her with every gift it might bestow. Her teeth were regular and white as pearls, and her hair was a very dark auburn, worn parted smoothly across her brow, and gathered in a modest snood behind the head, while it was easy to see by its very texture that if left to itself, it would have curled naturally.
Such was Fanny Campbell.
There was one matter which weighed heavily upon young Lovell’s mind relative to leaving Fanny and his home. About two months previous to the opening of our tale, a young British officer, Captain of one of the Royal Cutters that lay in Boston harbor, had met with Fanny at her relations in the town, and was at once struck by her extraordinary beauty of person, while he also admired the peculiar tone of her mind, so bold and independant, and yet perfectly tempered by a spirit of modesty. He did not hesitate to show his admiration and while she was in town, he was assiduous in paying her those delicate and gentlemanly attentions, which cannot but prove acceptable to every female, while regulated by a proper sense of delicacy and honorable motives. To say that Fanny was not pleased with the attention of Captain Burnet would be incorrect. He was an intelligent and well educated man, whose taste and manners had been improved by seeing much of the world, and being of an observant character, he had stored much pleasing and useful knowledge, This he knew full well how to employ to advantage. Fanny was at once attracted by his pleasant manner and the fund of information he seemed to possess, and besides all else, she was extremely fond of the sea and all that related to it, while upon this theme Burnet was peculiarly eloquent.
Thus passed several weeks and Fanny became quite familiar with the Captain of the King’s Cutter. There was only one point upon which they materially disagreed, and that was relative to the conduct of the home government and their right to tax and make laws for the colonies. Fanny was eloquent on this point and argued warmly and eloquently for her countrymen, while Burnet who was an American by birth and whose heart was indeed with his native land, was yet obliged to support the side with which he fought. He nevertheless frankly acknowledged to Fanny on more than one occasion that her eloquence had nearly made a ‘rebel’ of him. Fanny at length returned to her home where the Captain had visited her several times: previous to the proposed departure of William Lovell on his voyage to sea, and of which we have so lately spoken.
It was evident to Lovell, that Fanny was pleased with the officer of the king although he knew that her love was his own. He did not revert to this subject at the interview on the rock, though it was near his heart the whole time. Indeed it was a delicate point with him, and one of which he had never spoken seriously to Fanny. He did not doubt her truth, yet he feared, and yet hardly so, that possibly in his absence, the officer might seek to obtain the favor of Fanny, and he feared for no good or honorable purpose. ‘For,’ said he to himself, ‘what can the captain of a king’s ship desire of a poor fisherman’s daughter but to sacrifice her to his own base purposes.’ Yet Lovell had so much confidence in her he loved, that he determined not even to allude to the matter, lest it might imply a suspicion which he would not acknowledge to himself. But he thought of these things nevertheless with some anxiety.
Young Lovell had never happened to meet with Captain Burnet, being absent at sea with his father at such times as he had chosen for his calls at the cottage, and all that he had learned from Fanny herself, who was far too honest and unaffected to conceal anything of such a character from him, but told him of all their intercourse, little suspecting the pain that it caused him. Captain Burnet had never offered her any attention, other than one friend might offer to another, nor had the thought ever entered her mind that he was striving to gain her affections. It appeared to be Burnet’s object to keep up this idea, for he had never made her a call as yet without expressly stating that business had drawn him to the immediate neighborhood of her father’s cottage, and thus the matter stood at the time William Lovell was preparing to leave his home. Burnet’s attention to Fanny Campbell had not caused any remark in the family, and Lovell comforted himself with the query, as he considered this state of the matter. ‘They have seen nothing to remark, why should I worry then?’ But for all his resolves to the contrary, his determination not to let the matter annoy him, as is always the case, he grew more fidgety in point of fact, as his determination of purpose seemed to himself to increase.
CHAPTER II
Early on the morning subsequent to the meeting on the Rock, William Lovell rose from his bed with the first grey of morning light, and stealing gently to Fanny’s apartment he knocked at her door; there was no response; he knocked again, still there was no reply. The poor girl had wept away nearly the whole night, and now nature had asserted her supremacy, and her weary form was wrapped in slumber. Lovell opened the door and quietly sought her bedside. There lay Fanny, a single tear trembling beneath each eye-lid; one dimpled arm bare to the shoulder lay across her partially exposed breast, while on the other her head rested in unconsciousness. A beautiful picture of innocence and purity was Fanny Campbell as she lay thus sleeping.
‘Thou hast wept thyself to sleep, poor Fanny,’ said Lovell, putting his arm affectionately about her neck, and gently kissing her ruby lips. He pressed them again, and this time, see? the dreamer puts her own arm about his neck, and the kiss was returned! but still she slept. He breathed a prayer, a silent, fervent prayer for her weal, then gently disengaging himself from her embrace, he said, as he looked lovingly upon her, ‘it were better to part thus, I will not wake her,’ and kissing her lips once more, Lovell left her sleeping still as he had found her.
He took leave of his parents, shook the hands of a few early risers among his friends, and started for Boston, from whence he was to sail at noon of that day on his first voyage to sea. The setting sun of that day shone upon the white sails of the vessel that bore him to sea many leagues from land. Lovell, whose life had been passed much upon the water, though not far from home, fell easily into the duty required of him, and proved himself to be an efficient and able seaman. Day after day the ship stood on her southern course until she was within the mild and salubrious climate of the West Indies, the great American Archipelago. – In those days and even for many years subsequent to that date, those seas were infested by bands of reckless freebooters or pirates, who committed depredations upon the marine of every nation with which they met; they were literally no respecters of persons. The men who commanded these bands of rovers of most fickle fancy, sometimes sailed under the white lily of France, the crescents of Turkey, the blazoned and gorgeous flag of Spain, or even the banner of the Church, bearing the Keys of Heaven, but mostly under the blood red flag, that denoted their character, and told their antagonists with whom they had to deal.
The good ship Royal Kent had now entered the milder latitudes, and was within a day’s sail of Port-au-Plat, when a suspicious craft hove in sight and immediately gave chase. The Kent had a crew of about a dozen men before the mast, with two or three officers; but they were poorly supplied with the means of defence, against any regular attack made by an armed vessel. Nevertheless, the two six pound cannonades were cleared away from rubbish amidships, and loaded for service; the guns too, some six or eight in number, were all double loaded, and the officers had each a brace of pistols, besides which their were enough cutlasses on board to supply each man with one.
With this little armament they determined to sell their lives dearly, if necessary, and the stranger should prove to be, that which they had every reason to suppose him, a pirate.
The stranger now neared them fast, and all doubt as to his character was soon dispelled, as a blood red flag was sent up to the mast head, and a gun fired for the Kent to heave too. This the captain had no intention of doing, and immediately after the Buccanier, for so he proved to be, began to fire upon them. The shots fell fast and thick