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      Chapter XIII.

       Our Heroes Seek Seclusion

       Table of Contents

      An hour before dawn the anchor was aweigh and the Royal James drifted ahead like a shadow, in between the outer islands where the fairway was wide and safe. Her gun-ports were open and every man was alertly at his station. It was a silent ship excepting when an officer passed an order along. Joe Hawkridge began to feel more sanguine of winning against odds. He had never seen such iron discipline as this in the bedlam aboard the Revenge. Stede Bonnet knew how to slacken the reins and when to apply the curb. His men were loyal because he dealt out justice as well as severity.

      "The captain says we must go below when the action commences, Joe," dismally observed Jack Cockrell.

      "It goes against the grain but we will not dispute him," was the sage reply. "We needn't be idle. You can lend a hand with the powder or pass the water buckets to douse the fire if she gets ablaze. And there's the wounded to carry into the cockpit and the blood to mop up, and——"

      "Enough o' that," cried Jack, getting pale about the gills. "You take it like a butcher!"

      "What else is it, you big moon-calf? Set me safe ashore in that Charles Town of yours, and I hope ne'er to see another weapon barring a spoon and a knife to cut my vittles."

      "There is sense in that," agreed young Master Cockrell.

      Smartly handled, the brig crept in as far as she dared go without more light by which to avoid the shallower water. The anchor was dropped to a short cable and buoyed ready to slip. It was estimated that the distance from Blackbeard's ship was somewhat more than a mile. The stars faded and the cloudless sky began to take on a roseate hue. The light breeze which had breathed like a cool zephyr through the night was dying in languid catspaws. Gradually the dark outline of coastal swamp and forest was uncurtained. And eager eyes were able to discern the yellow spars and blurred hull of the Revenge against the gloomy background.

      Stede Bonnet's brig was, of course, pricked out much more sharply with the seaward horizon behind her. To her crew, in this hushed morning, there came a prolonged, shrill note that was like the call of a bird. It trilled with a silvery sweetness and was repeated over and over again.

      "A bos'n's pipe," said Captain Bonnet, a hand cupped at his ear. "Blackbeard has sighted us and is mustering his crew."

      So faint was the breeze that the command was given to man two boats and take a hawser from the brig to tow her through the inner channel. Before they were in motion, however, the pearly mist began to roll out of the Cherokee swamp as if a great cauldron were steaming. The weather favored it, heat in the air and little wind. The mist seemed also to rise from the water, hanging low but as thick as a summer fog. It shrouded the coast and Blackbeard's ship and crept out across the harbor until the brig was enveloped in it.

      "'Twas like this when we swum ashore and found the pirogue, Cap'n Bonnet," said Joe Hawkridge. "A curious kind o' white smother from the swamp."

      "And how long did it hang thus?" was the impatient query.

      "When the sun was well up, sir, it seemed to burn away like. It has the same look as the fever-breedin' vapors of Darien and Yucatan."

      Captain Bonnet called his boats back and was in an ugly humor. There was no towing the brig through this bothersome fog which obscured every mark and left a man bewildered. And instead of surprising Blackbeard unprepared, he would now have time to make his ship ready. However, Stede Bonnet was not a man to wring his hands because a well-laid scheme went wrong. Without delay the crew was assembled in the waist and he spoke to them from the break of the poop.

      "We shall make this weather serve our purpose, lads. Fill the boats, every man to his billet. The mates will see to it that the oars are well muffled. Silence above all things. Nimbly now."

      There was no need to say more. They fathomed the strategy which would enable them to approach Blackbeard's ship unheard and unseen and then swarm over her side in a ferocious onslaught. Cheerily they took stock of their weapons, drank a health from a tub of stiff grog, and lined up for Captain Bonnet's inspection. They wore clean clothes, the best they could find in their bags, as has always been the sailor's habit when going into action. The ship was left in charge of the navigator with a few men who were the least stalwart or experienced in such desperate adventures as this.

      Stede Bonnet went in command of the largest boat to lead the party and single out Blackbeard as his own particular foe. There was a large chance that he might not return and he therefore left instructions for the disposal of the brig, advising the navigator to take her to Charles Town and there sue for the king's pardon in behalf of those on board. He shook hands with Jack Cockrell and Joe Hawkridge, bade them be careful of their own safety, and with no more ado took his place in the boat. The flotilla stole away from the brig, sunburned, savage men with bright weapons for whom life was like a throw of the dice, and the pearly fog concealed them when they had passed no more than a cable-length away. So skilfully was the sound of the oars deadened that you would not have guessed that boats were moving across the harbor.

      "Blackbeard fights like a tiger but trust Cap'n Bonnet to outwit him," said Joe Hawkridge, who stood at the brig's rail with Jack at his elbow.

      "It will be mighty hard waiting," was the tense reply. "We shall know when they find the Revenge. They are not apt to miss her, with a compass in the captain's boat."

      "Aye, there'll be noise enough. Plaguey queer, eh, Jack, to be a-loafin' with nothing to see, like your head was wrapped in a blanket. They ought to fetch alongside Blackbeard in a half-hour. Go turn the sand-glass in the cabin."

      They fidgeted about in aimless fashion and fell into talk with the navigator, or artist, as he was called, a middle-aged man who had been a master mariner in the slave trade. He told them a yarn or two of the Guinea coast but he, too, was restless and left them to stump up and down the deck and peer toward the shore. Jack dodged into the cabin to watch the sand trickle into the bottom of the glass. Never was a half-hour so long in passing.

      A yell from Joe Hawkridge recalled him to the deck. He listened but heard no distant pistol shots or the hoarse uproar of men in mortal combat. Joe raised a warning hand and told him to stand still. There came a faint splash. It might have been a fish leaping but Joe insisted that it was made by a careless oar. Jack heard it again and then fancied he caught the softened beat of muffled oars close at hand.

      "They lost the course. The fog confused 'em," said he, in great disgust.

      "But why come back to the ship?" demanded Joe. "They could lay and wait for the fog to lift a little. And I told Cap'n Bonnet to bear to the north'ard if in doubt and find the shore of the swamp. Then he could coast back to the beach and so strike the Revenge."

      "Well, here they come, Joe, and there is sure to be a good reason. Mayhap the fog cleared to landward and they intend to tow the brig in, after all."

      Just then the foremost boat became visible and behind it was the vague shape of another. The puzzled lads stared and stared and the hair stiffened on their scalps for sheer horror. These were not the boats from the Royal James. They were filled with Blackbeard's own pirates from the Revenge!

      The