A private venture might be fitted out—­and there were many who had a blood-feud with Sharkey—­but what could a private venture do?  The pirates were numerous and desperate.  As to taking Sharkey and his four companions, that, of course, would be easy if they could get at them; but how were they to get at them on a large well-wooded island like La Vache, full of wild hills and impenetrable jungles?  A reward was offered to whoever could find a solution, and that brought a man to the front who had a singular plan, and was himself prepared to carry it out.

Stephen Craddock had been that most formidable person, the Puritan gone wrong.  Sprung from a decent Salem family, his ill-doing seemed to be a recoil from the austerity of their religion, and he brought to vice all the physical strength and energy with which the virtues of his ancestors had endowed him.  He was ingenious, fearless, and exceedingly tenacious of purpose, so that when he was still young, his name became notorious upon the American coast.  He was the same Craddock who was tried for his life in Virginia for the slaying of the Seminole Chief, and, though he escaped, it was well known that he had corrupted the witnesses and bribed the judge.

Afterwards, as a slaver, and even, as it was hinted, as a pirate, he had left an evil name behind him in the Bight of Benin.  Finally he had returned to Jamaica with a considerable fortune, and had settled down to a life of sombre dissipation.  This was the man, gaunt, austere, and dangerous, who now waited upon the Governor with a plan for the extirpation of Sharkey.  Sir Edward received him with little enthusiasm, for in spite of some rumours of conversion and reformation, he had always regarded him as an infected sheep who might taint the whole of his little flock.  Craddock saw the Governor’s mistrust under his thin veil of formal and restrained courtesy.

“You’ve no call to fear me, sir,” said he; “I’m a changed man from what you’ve known.  I’ve seen the light again of late, after losing sight of it for many a black year.  It was through the ministration of the Rev. John Simons, of our own people.  Sir, if your spirit should be in need of quickening, you would find a very sweet savour in his discourse.”

The Governor cocked his episcopalian nose at him.

“You came here to speak of Sharkey, Master Craddock,” said he.

“The man Sharkey is a vessel of wrath,” said Craddock.  “His wicked horn has been exalted over long, and it is borne in upon me that if I can cut him off and utterly destroy him, it will be a goodly deed, and one which may atone for many backslidings in the past.  A plan has been given to me whereby I may encompass his destruction.”

The Governor was keenly interested, for there was a grim and practical air about the man’s freckled face which showed that he was in earnest.  After all, he was a seaman and a fighter, and, if it were true that he was eager to atone for his past, no better man could be chosen for the business.