On the merchant ship, Kanhoji once again checked the horizon to make sure that they were all alone in the bay. Laying in front of him on the floor, off course all against his own wish was Stuart, the captain of English ship. With his hands tied behind his back and his feet tied together, Stuart was as helpless as wooden log. He wrestled his body in anger in a desperate attempt to get free, but his efforts ended up in hurting him more. Kanhoji laughed viciously at him in despise, which hurt Stuart even more than the pain from the tight grip of ropes on his body.
Around them, on board the ship, rest of the pirates were busy unloading goods from the merchant ships onto their mother ship which was anchored just a few yards away. Pirates were in jovial mood. They were singing the folklores and mocking fun at English sailors. The reason was that Pirates had not anticipated their raid to go that smoothly a while back, when they were preparing for this attack.
Their surprise attack on the Company Caravan caught the English sailors totally off guard. A last minute skirmish ended up damaging one of the ships in caravan as English tried to put on some resistance. But since then the Pirates had tied down all of the company men together and bound them to the mast. After that all the precious cargo on the merchant ship was theirs for easy picking.
This was yet another successful raid by the pirates in recent past under the effective guidance of their leader Kanhoji. Kanhoji was a strongly built, dark and tall middle aged man. He was master of seas and equally good at pulling up pranks. Since his childhood, he had lived by the seas and he was expert in sailing. He knew these waters extremely well which he claimed as his own domain. So anyone passing through these waters must pay the taxes to him and his pirates.
Pirates had been on the captured ship for long time by then. They were anchored just a little away from the busy shipping lanes which connected Kadamba to major ports in Eastern Africa. Generally many company ships sailed on this route and English had stepped up their patrol after being wary of pirates attack.
Sensing the imminent danger of being spotted by another company ship, Kanhoji ordered his men to pull out, “Enough fun boys. Don’t get too cosy. Anytime another company ship may pass through this strait. I don’t want another fight at this time. Already our ships are heavy because of all the loot we have got now. We must sneak out quickly.”
“Let’s disperse from here safely and live another day to enjoy our bounty. I don’t want anybody to get hurt.” ordered Kanhoji.
Stuart laughed at him sarcastically, “Scared ha, Cowards. You didn’t stand a chance if we had met each other face to face in combat.”
Kanhoji cut Stuart’s sentence short, “Ha ha, don’t forget my dear. We are the pirates and not the gladiators. Pirates never fight battles face to face. We cheat and play pranks. No medals for us for being brave.”
Stuart tried to warn him, “For how long? You are not going to get away with this. Very soon you will be caught and tried in our courts. Do you know what punishment we have for the piracy?”
Kanhoji replied as if he is mocking fun, “Yes, You will hang us. But only if you ever managed to catch us?”
Kanhoji continued, “Right now it’s you who is in my custody and you should be worried about your life. I have decided to spare your life. Please do not make me change my mind. My sensible mind is telling me to drop you in the water, but I am trying to curb this feeling real badly.”
Those warnings made Stuart feel real cold in the mid-afternoon and he decided to go quite accepting his fate. The shallow waters around these islands were infested with sharks and he had heard many tragic stories about unfortunate souls losing their lives after ship wreck.
The pirates were about to wrap up when Kanhoji spotted another pair of ships heading east through the dense vegetation of bay. By looks of it, those were very big military ships.
He was sure that they had not seen them. He had carefully chosen that spot in the bay to unload cargo, because from there, he could keep an eye on the shipping lanes by still staying invisible behind the dense vegetation when seen from the open sea. But he realized that due to the smoke emitting from the burning merchant ship, other English ship could get alerted and their cover was blown up. They had at least an hour before English ships arrived at their spot.
Kanhoji hastily instructed his deputy Jankoji by pulling him aside, “Hurry up! My fear has come true. Already there are other ships fast approaching us. I think it is a military caravan.” He said pointing to the approaching ships.
Jankoji had a glance to the west and asked, “That’s unexpected. But we will get going quickly. What about these captured men?”
Kanhoji said “Drop them in small fishing boats and burn down the damaged ship. English ships have to slow down to pick up their men and so they cannot chase us. This will give us enough time to escape.”
“Let’s takes this ship with us. This ship is in good condition and it will be a good addition to our fleet. Vishwakarma will make wonders out of this pile of wood.”
Kanhoji gave the departing instructions, “Take charge of this ship. We will escape in separate directions. We will meet at the same spot in two days from now.”
Jankoji acknowledged and in very short while pirates started sailing up north. The Englishmen were dropped in the small fishing boats left to float like leaf in high seas.
As they were floating away, Kanhoji waived final good bye to English captain, “Hope to see you soon. Good luck and please remember me. Eventually, we will meet one day face to face as you wished.”
“Please bring some more cargo next time” said Jankoji from other ship while departing.
Stuart heard those insulting comments but he did not feel bad at all. He was really delighted after surviving through that whole ordeal and in fact he was feeling relieved. But really out of shame, he tried to hide his joy from his subordinates. He had no desire to meet pirates once again at least in near future. But for a while, he had to wait patiently for getting rescued from those shark infested waters.
