I found this interesting fictional log
entry alleged to have been written by Israel Hands in 1717. It's from the
novel Paragon Island by Erik Alexander Dresen. His novel is a
“what-if” scenario of an Englishman finding the long-lost
treasure of Olivier Levasseur. I thought it was an interesting
speculation of what one of Levasseur's contemporaries might have
written about him after meeting him.
“Rough log entry on Saturday,
January 23rd; we lay at Teach's Hole again, an Anchorage
near Okerecoke Inlet; the Corsair with the Cognomen of Buzzard, thus
Blackbeard called him by the fire of bones, about a score and ten
summers at most, was of sanguine complexion, as if he was drinking in
a sniff of pure sea breeze and a pinch of carmine brine for years.
His frame was beefy and his features were sharp; a Heavy of his
Calibre in the flesh. Caused by a cutlass but one of his eyes was
damaged and there he had a Scar across his brow and right cheek. His
sound eye was bluish, with a tinge of aquamarine and some turquoise
scatterings, fixating on me as if it were seriously considering
rounding on at the very next blink.
The longer I observed him, the more
rapacious he appeared to me, with rapid moves, seemingly on the hunt
for easy prey. The mere though of it provoked an uneasy feeling of
being menaced in my guts. Once I pictured him as an albino creature;
and his skull and the orbits were fully illuminated by blazing
streams of sunlight, allowing his blood vessels to shine through.
'That's his real soul,' I figured
instantly; and that vivid fancy of mine sent frosty shivers up and
down my Spine. 'In sooth it's in my soul,' inkhorny as he spoke; and
it was as though he's divined my thoughts. His pitch-dark plait was
neatly stowed under a cocked Hat that was enthroned on his head
askew. The Frenchman comported himself in an elegant, literate and
gentlemanly manner, being a connoisseur of classical languages and
endued with maritime prowess. Apart from his masterly touches, he was
a real Ringleader and a Migrant afloat; and I reckon that he was
leal and faithful unto Death.
His preponderantly French crew was
an aggressive and bloodthirsty flock of inseparables of a feather.
'Birds of a feather flock together!' as that Captain used to say/
'Howsoever,' I says, 'and so be it!'
I.H., Master of Teach's ship, 1717.
Paragon Island, by E.A. Dresen,
2015.
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