After spending a few years on the Australian goldfields, where he made
the acquaintance of Engineer Serko and Captain Spade, Ker Karraje
managed to seize a ship in the port of Melbourne, in the province
of Victoria. He was joined by about thirty rascals whose number was
speedily tripled. In that part of the Pacific Ocean where piracy is
still carried on with great facility, and I may say, profit, the
number of ships pillaged, crews massacred, and raids committed in
certain western islands which the colonists were unable to defend,
cannot be estimated.
Although the whereabouts of Ker Karraje's vessel, commanded by Captain
Spade, was several times made known to the authorities, all attempts
to capture it proved futile. The marauder would disappear among the
innumerable islands of which he knew every cove and creek, and it was
impossible to come across him.
He maintained a perfect reign of terror. England, France, Germany,
Russia and America vainly dispatched warships in pursuit of the
phantom vessel which disappeared, no one knew whither, after robberies
and murders that could not be prevented or punished had been committed
by her crew.
One day this series of crimes came to an end, and no more was heard of
Ker Karraje. Had he abandoned the Pacific for other seas? Would this
pirate break out in a fresh place? It was argued that notwithstanding
what they must have spent in orgies and debauchery the pirate and his
companions must still have an enormous amount of wealth hidden in some
place known only to themselves, and that they were enjoying their
ill-gotten gains.
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