Imaginary LIves by Marcel Schwob

surface of the sea. But the hot dawn of the tropics revealed an ocean clear and tranquil, and The Rose of Algiers continued her monotonous course. Eight days she held to it, until the men’s eyes burned red from their constant scrutiny of the limpid depths. Phips ran out of provisions. There was nothing to do but depart, so he gave the order and The Rose of Algiers came about. At that moment Adderly spied an unusual cluster of pure white seaweed growing on a side of the reef. He wanted it, so one of the Indians plunged, plucked the thing and brought it up, hanging straight and heavy from his hand. It was strangely heavy, the twisted roots seeming to entwine themselves around some form not unlike a pebble. Adderly swung the roots down against the deck to rid them of this weight, and a bright object rolled out sparkling in the sunlight. Phips yelled aloud. It was a lump of silver worth three hundred pounds. Adderly waved the white seaweed stupidly while the Indians began to dive. Within a few hours the deck was covered with old sacks as hard as stone, petrified, grown over completely with barnacles and little shells. When they were split open with cold chisels and mallets a stream of gold and silver nuggets and pieces of eight came pouring out of the holes. “God be praised!” cried Phips, “our fortune is made.” In all, the treasure amounted to three hundred thousand pounds sterling. Adderly kept repeating, “and all that came out of the root of a white seaweed!” He died at Bermuda several days later, raving mad.
    Phips brought his treasure back. The King of England made him Sir William Phips, naming him High Sheriff of Boston. There he realized his dreams when he built a fine house of red brick on Green Street. He became a man of some importance. It was he who led the campaign against the French possessions, taking Arcadia from de Meneval and de Villebon, whereupon the king made him Governor of Massachusetts and Captain General of Maine and Newfoundland. His strong boxes were now heaped with gold. Then he set out to capture Quebec after gathering up all the loose money in Boston to fund his project. The enterprise failed and the colony was ruined. Phips tried issuing paper money, giving out his own gold in exchange, hoping by that measure to increase the value of the paper. But fortune had turned. The paper could not be upheld and Phips lost everything. Soon he found himself poor, in debt, harassed by his enemies. His prosperity had only lasted eight years. As he was embarking miserably enough, for London, he was arrested in default of twenty thousand pounds at the request of Dudley and Brenton, and was taken to Fleet Prison.
    They locked Sir William Phips in a bare cell.
    The only thing he had saved was the silver nugget that brought him his fortune – the silver nugget from the white seaweed. Fever and despair were on him: death took him by the throat. He struggled, haunted by visions of treasure. The galleon of the Spanish governor Bobadilla had gone down, loaded with gold and silver, in the vicinity of the Bahamas.
    Gaunt with fever and his last, furious hope, Phips sent for the keeper of the prison. Holding out his silver nugget in his shriveled hand, he mumbled crazily:
    “Let me dive – here, see? Here is one of the nuggets of Bobadilla!”
    Then he died. The nugget from the white seaweed paid for his coffin.
     
     

CAPTAIN KIDD
    Pirate
     
     
    How this pirate came by the name of Kidd is not altogether clear. The act through which William the Third of England granted him his commission of the Adventure in 1695 began with these words: “To our faithful and well loved captain, William Kidd, commander... greetings.” Certainly from that time on it was a name of war. In battle or manoeuvre some say he always had the elegant habit of wearing delicate kid gloves with revers of Flanders lace.
    Others declare he would cry out during his worst butcheries: “Me? – why, I’m as meek and mild as a new born