The captain of the trading vessel was a famous seafarer who, in his youth, had served as cabin boy to Christopher Columbus on his first voyage to discover the New World. With the captain, was his son Kit, a strong young man who idolized his father and hoped to follow in his footsteps as a seafarer. But the pirate attack was disastrous. In a furious battle, the entire crew of the merchantman was killed and the ship sank in flames. The sole survivor was young Kit, who, as he fell off the burning ship, saw his father killed by a pirate. Kit was washed ashore, half dead, and friendly pygmies found him and nursed him to health. Walking on the beach one day, he found a dead pirate dressed in his father's clothes, and realized this was the pirate who had killed his father. Grief-stricken, he waited until vultures had stripped the body clean. Then, on the skull of his father's murderer, he swore an oath by firelight as the friendly pygmies watched. "I swear to devote my life to the destruction of piracy, greed, cruelty, and injustice, and my sons and their sons shall follow me." This was the Oath of the Skull that Kit and his descendants would live by.
