Page 57 - Early English Adventurers in the Middle East_Neat

A FIGHT TO A FINISH 57

A single ship of 2d0 tons named the Tiger, and a pinnace,
appropriately christened the Tiger's Whelp, comprised his
“ fIeet.,, The whole might have been stowed away on the
deck of a modern Atlantic liner without greatly disturbing
the deck arrangements. It was formidable enough, how­
ever, to cause a good many heart-searchings in certain
quarters when the news of its sailing from Cowes on
December 5, 1601, reached the City of London, as it
probably did a day or two later.
It is unnecessary to follow, Michelborne through the
various stages of his voyage to the East, which differed
little from those which had preceded it.
We may take the story up on August 21, 1605, when the
Tiger and her consort arrived in the vicinity of Bantam.
The appearance at this point of native craft upon the sea
seems to have suggested to Michelborne the opportunity
for a little indiscriminate piracy. Two prows that were
overhauled yielded nothing but a small quantity of rice.
On boarding one of them, under the impression that the
crew had escaped, two of the sailors from the Tiger were
grievously wounded by two natives who were lying hidden
and who, as soon as the Englishmen set foot in the craft,
attacked them with their krises inflicting terrible injuries,
thereafter leaping overboard and “ swimming away like
water spaniels.” A day or two later a Bantam ship was
overhauled and dismissed, apparently because she had on
board nothing worth the taking. Still later a more promis­
ing capture was made in the shape of an Indian ship of some
eighty tons, laden with a miscellaneous cargo. She was
taken into Sillebar, a port in Sumatra, and ransacked with
a fine disregard for all laws of right and justice. As no
further opening for plunder appeared to offer, Michelborne