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them cursing each other.
Captain Jonathan Wellsby smothered a groan and his stern mouth twitched as he said to his chief mate:
"God's mercy on us! 'Tis none other than the bloody Edward Teach,—that calls himself Blackbeard! My information was that he still cruised off the Spanish Main and refitted his ships in the Bay of Honduras."
"The madman of the sea," said the stolid mate. "A bad day for us when he sailed to the north'ard. He kills for the pleasure of it. Now Stede Bonnet loots such stuff as takes his fancy and——"
"He loves to fight a king's ship for the sport of it," broke in the skipper, "but this murderer—— An unlucky voyage for the old Plymouth Adventure and all hands, Mate."
One of the women who had been suffered to remain on deck was close enough to overhear the direful news. Her hands to heaven, she wailed:
"Blackbeard! Oh, my soul, we are as good as dead, or worse. Fight and sink him, dear captain. What shall I do? What shall I do? If I had only minded the dream I had the night before we sailed——"
Jack Cockrell sat down beside his uncle, a limp and sorry youth for one who had offered to slay a six-foot pirate before breakfast to please a pretty maid. With a sickly grin he murmured:
"This cockerel crowed too loud, Uncle Peter. Methinks I share your distaste for piracy."
Chapter III.
Held as Hostages to Blackbeard
To discover the pestilent Blackbeard in Carolina waters was like a thunderbolt from a clear sky. Captain Wellsby had felt confident that he could beat off the ordinary pirate craft which was apt to be smaller than his own stout ship. And most of these unsavory gentry were mere salt-water burglars who had little taste for hard fighting. The master of the Plymouth Adventure, so pious and sedate, was a brave man to whom the thought of surrender was intolerable. From what he knew of Blackbeard, it was useless to try to parley for the lives of his passengers. Better it was to answer with double-shotted guns than to beg for mercy.
The British tars, stripped to the waist, turned anxious eyes to the skipper upon the quarter-deck while they quaffed pannikins of rum and water and cracked many a rough jest. They fancied death no more than other men, but seafaring was a perilous trade and they were toughened to its hazards. They were facing hopeless odds but let the master shout the command and they would send the souls of some of these pirates sizzling down to hell before the Plymouth Adventure sank, a splintered hulk, in the smoke of her own gunpowder.
Captain Wellsby delayed his decision a moment longer. Something most unusual had attracted his attention. A ball of smoke puffed from a port of Blackbeard's ship, but the round shot splashed beyond the bowsprit of the Plymouth Adventure instead of thudding into her oaken side. This was a signal to heave to. It was a courtesy both unexpected and perplexing, because Blackbeard's habit was to let fly with all the guns that could bear as the summons to submit. Presently a dingy bit of cloth fluttered just beneath the black flag. It looked like the remains of a pirate's shirt which had once been white.
"A signal for a truce?" muttered Captain Wellsby. "A ruse, mayhap, but the rogue has no need to resort to trickery."
The two sloops of Blackbeard's squadron, spreading tall, square topsails, came driving down to windward in readiness to fire their bow-chasers and form in line of battle. The passengers of the Plymouth Adventure, snatching at the chance of safety, implored the skipper to send his men away from the guns lest a rash shot might be their ruin. They prayed him to respect the precious flag of truce and to ascertain the meaning of it. Mystified and wavering in his purpose, he told the mates to back the main-yard and heave the ship to.
Upon his own deck Blackbeard was stamping to and fro, bellowing at his crew while he flourished a broadsword by way of emphasis. The hapless company of the Plymouth Adventure shivered at the very sight of him and yet there was something almost ludicrous in the antics of this atrocious pirate, as though he were play-acting upon the stage of a theatre. He had tucked up the tails of his military coat because the wind whipped them about his bandy legs and made him stumble. The flowing whiskers also proved bothersome, wherefore he looped them back over his ears by means of the bows of crimson ribbon. This seemed to be his personal fashion of clearing for action.
"There be pirates and pirates," critically observed Mr. Peter Forbes as he stared at the unpleasant Blackbeard. "This is a filthy beast, Jack, and he was badly brought up. He has no manners whatever."
"Parson Throckmorton would take him for the devil himself," gloomily answered the lad.
And now they saw Blackbeard raise a speaking-trumpet to his lips and heard the hoarse voice come down the wind with this message:
"The ship ahoy! Steady as ye be, blast your eyes, or I'll lay aboard and butcher all hands."
He turned and yelled commands to the two sloops which now rolled within pistol-shot. In helter-skelter style but with great speed, one boat after another was lowered away and filled with armed pirates. They rowed toward the Plymouth Adventure and there were enough of them to carry her by boarding. In addition to this, she was directly under the guns of Blackbeard's powerful ship. One valorous young gentleman passenger whipped out a rapier and swore to perish with his face to the foe, but Captain Wellsby kicked him into the cabin and fastened the scuttle. This was no time for dramatics.
"It looks that the old ruffian comes on a peaceful errand," said the skipper, by way of comfort. But the hysterical ladies below decks redoubled their screams and one substantial merchant of Charles Town scrambled down to hide himself among them. Mr. Peter Arbuthnot Forbes folded his arms and there was no sign of weakness in his pink countenance. His dignity still sustained him.
As agile as monkeys, the mob of pirates poured over the bulwark, slashing through the hammock nettings, and swept forward in a compact mass, driving Captain Wellsby's seamen before them and penning them in the forecastle. Having cleared the waist of the ship, they loitered there until a few of them discovered the galley and pantry. They swept the shelves and lockers bare of food like a pack of famished wolves. Jack Cockrell looked at them from the poop and perceived that they were a gaunt, ragged lot. The skins of some were yellow like parchment, and fits of trembling overtook them. Something more than dissipation ailed them.
With a body-guard of the sturdiest men, Blackbeard clambered up the poop ladder and, with wicked oaths, told the skipper to stand forth. Clean and trig and carefully dressed, Captain Jonathan Wellsby confronted these savage, unwashed pirates and calmly demanded to know their errand. It was plain to read that Blackbeard thought himself an imposing figure. With a smirk and a grimace he bowed clumsily to a woman on deck who had refused to desert her husband. He growled like a bear at Captain Wellsby and prodded the poor man with his cutlass as he thundered:
"You tried my patience, shipmaster, with your cracking on sail. A little more and I'd ha' slit your throat. Blood an' wounds, would ye dare to vex Blackbeard?"
Captain Wellsby faced him with unshaken composure and returned in a strong voice:
"I beg no favors for myself but these helpless people, women amongst them, came on board with my assurance of safety. They have friends and kinsmen in Charles Town who will ransom them in gold."
Blackbeard's mien was a shade less ferocious as he cried:
"Gold? Can it cool a fever or heal a festering sore? A score of my men are down and the others are tottering ghosts. Medicines I must have. A foul plague on those ports of the Spanish Main which laid my fine lads by the heels."
Jack Cockrell, who had retreated to the taffrail, decided that this unkempt pirate was not so absurd as he appeared. There was the strength of a giant in those hulking shoulders and in the long arms which bulged the coat-sleeves, and the man moved with a quickness which made that clumsy air deceptive. The beard masked his features but the eye was keen and roving, and he had a trick of baring his teeth in a nasty snarl. He uttered