The Two Barques

Summary

The Two Barques is a short story by Arthur Conan Doyle first published in the Pearson's Magazine in march 1897. 2nd story of the Captain Sharkey saga.In Kingston, an elderly logwood-cutter saw Captain Sharkey's pirate barque, the Happy Delivery, careening at Torbec on the south-west of Hispaniola, as well as Sharkey himself, with four men, buccaneering on the outlying island of La Vache. Stephen Craddock, an adventurer comes to the Governor Sir Edward Compton with a plan for the extirpation of Sharkey. He want to use the sister ship of the Happy Delivery, the White Rose, and set sail for the Island of La Vache, where Sharkey is slaying the wild oxen. When Sharkey will see the White Rose he will surely mistake it for his own vessel which he is awaiting, and he will come on board to his own undoing. The plan is accepted by the Governor and Craddock set sail to La Vache with a crew of volunteers. When they arrive to La Vache, no sign of Sharkey. They search him in the forest for a few days but finally they decide to return to their boat. When they arrive on board something is strange, as if it was not the same ship, and suddenly they are captured by Sharkey on the deck. They are on the pirate ship the Happy Delivery which came back from its careening upon the very day that they left in the forest. Then the White Rose is scuttled in the bay. Craddock, bruised and wounded in soul and body, is thrown into a dark sail-room. For two days, the Happy Delivery set sail to Jamaica. When he arrives to Port-Royal, Sharkey, with that diabolical cunning and audacity which were among his main characteristics, is simulating the part which Craddock would himself have played had he come back victorious. Sharkey exhibits Craddock on the deck so that the other side could fall into the trap but the later has sprung the bulwarks and is swimming for his life. He is hit and hit again by pistol shots but is still swimming. Irritated, Sharkey takes his musket and fired a fatal blow on Craddock.