KER KARRAJE 179

East Indian race. It matters little, however. What is
certain is that he is rightly regarded as the author of the
innumerable outrages committed in those distant seas.

After having passed some years on the diggings in
Australia, where he made acquaintance with Spade and
Serké, Ker Karraje succeeded in getting hold of a
vessel in the port of Melbourne in the colony of Victoria.
Thirty rascals, whose number was soon to be tripled, -
became his companions. In that part of the Pacific where
piracy is still so easy and, it is said, so profitable—how
many ships were plundered, how many crews. massacred,
how many raids organized in certain western islands where
the settlers were not strong enough to defend themselves ?
Although Ker Karraje’s ship had often been sighted, no
one had ever been able to overtake it. It seemed to have
the faculty of disappearing at will in those island mazes
where Captain Spade knew every creek and channel.

Dismay then reigned in those latitudes. The English,
French, Germans, Russians, Americans, in vain sent their
vessels to pursue this phantom ship, which came no one
-knew whence, and hid itself no one knew where, after
pillages and massacres it was impossible either to arrest or
to punish.

One day these crimes came to an end. Nothing more
was heard of Ker Karraje. Had he abandoned the Pacific
for other seas? Was piracy going to break out elsewhere?
As it did not recommence for some time, the impression
spread that notwithstanding all that had been spent in
orgies and debauch, sufficient profit remained from these

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