"He is not lookin' about but motions 'em to row on up the stream."

"Then our canoe is not what he's after?" murmured Jack.

"'Tis some queer game. Were he hunting us, he'd fetch along more hands than them two. Hush! Let him pass."

The little boat came steadily on, the tide helping the oars. It sat very low in the water, oddly so for the weight of three men. Blackbeard, hunched in the stern, held a pistol in one hand while the other gripped the tiller. This was not in fear of danger from the shore because he kept his eyes on the two seamen at the oars and it was plain to see that the pistol was meant to menace them.

The boat passed abreast of the pirogue so artfully concealed in the pocket of a tiny cove. The intervening distance was no more than a dozen yards. Old Trimble Rogers wistfully fingered the musket and lifted it to squint along the barrel. Never was temptation more sturdily resisted. Then his face, hard as iron and puckered like dried leather, broke into a smile. The idea pleased him immensely. They would follow Blackbeard and watch the chance to take him alive. He who had trapped his own men in camp was now neatly trapped himself, his retreat cut off. Tie a couple of fathom of stout cord to his whiskers and tow him along by land, all the way to Stede Bonnet's ship. There the worthy captain could bargain with him at his own terms, silently chuckled the old buccaneer.

They held their breath and gazed at the fantastic scoundrel who had made himself the ogre among pirates. He had discarded the great hat as cumbersome and his tousled head was bound around with a wide strip of the red calico from India. Still and solid he sat, like a heathen idol, staring in front of him and intent on his mysterious errand. The unseen spectators in the pirogue scanned also the two seamen at the oars and felt a vague pity for them. Unmistakably they were sick with fear. It was conveyed by their dejected aspect, by the tinge of pallor, by the fixity with which they regarded the cocked pistol in Blackbeard's fist. Jack Cockrell knew them as abandoned villains who had boasted of many a bloody deed but the swarthy, pockmarked fellow had been in the boat which had saved the two lads from the drifting raft. This was enough to awaken a lively sympathy.

Trimble Rogers gripped Jack's shoulder with a strength which made him wince and pointed a skinny finger at the boat. The fate of the two seamen did not trouble him greatly. Those who lived by violence should rightly expect to die by it. The sea was their gaming table and it was their ill luck if the dice were cogged. Just then Bill Saxby stifled an ejaculation. He, too, had discovered the freightage in the cock-boat, the heavy burden which made it swim so low.

It rested in front of Blackbeard's knees, the top showing above the curve of the gunwales. It was a sea-chest, uncommonly large, built of some dark tropical wood and strapped with iron. Old Trimble Rogers' fierce eyes glittered and he licked his lips. He leaned over to whisper in Bill Saxby's ear the one word:

"Treasure!"



CHAPTER IX

BLACKBEARD'S ERRAND IS INTERRUPTED

BLACKBEARD'S deep-laden boat was rowed on past the pirogue and turned to follow the channel of the sluggish stream. Bill Saxby thrust aside the cover of grass and boughs and shoved the log canoe out of the cove. So crooked was the course of the creek that the boat was already out of sight and by stealthy paddling it was possible to pursue undetected. Old Trimble Rogers had forgotten his lust to slay Blackbeard. His gloating imagination could picture the contents of that massive sea-chest after a long cruise in southern waters.

It was foolish to attempt to surprise Blackbeard while afloat in the creek. In a race of it, the handy cock-boat could pull away from the clumsier pirogue manned by two paddles only, for Trimble Rogers was needed to steer and be ready with the musket. This was their only firearm, which Bill Saxby had snatched up during the flight from the camp. At the same time he had lifted a powder-horn and bullet pouch from a wounded pirate.

"If I do bang away and miss him," grumbled Trimble Rogers, "he's apt to pepper us afore I can reload."

"But you forswore shootin' him," chided Bill Saxby, between strokes of the paddle.

"Show me a great sea-chest crammed wi' treasure and I'd put a hole through the Grand High Panjandrum hisself," replied the ancient one. "Aye, Bill, there be more'n one way to skin an eel. We'll lay aboard this bloody blow-hard of a Cap'n Teach whilst he's a-buryin' of it. Here may well be where he has tucked away his other plunder. What if we bag the whole of it?"

"One more fling, eh, Trimble, and more gold than ye lugged on your back from Guayaquil," grinned young Bill.

They had spoken in cautious tones and now held their tongues. The paddles dipped with no more than a trickle of water and the canoe hugged the marsh. They were close to the next bend of the stream and the sound of the oars in the cock-boat was faintly audible. As the tallest of the three, the old man stood up after swathing his head in dried grass, and gazed across the curve of the shore. By signs he told his companions that Blackbeard was bound farther up the stream.

They waited a little, giving their quarry time to pass beyond another turn of the channel. Jack Cockrell was embarked on the most entrancing excursion of his life. This repaid him for all he had suffered. His only regret was that poor Joe Hawkridge had been marooned before he could share this golden adventure. However, he would see that Joe received a handsome amount of treasure. Trimble Rogers was muttering again, and thus he angrily expounded a grievance:

"A thief is this Cap'n Teach,—like a wild hog, all greed and bristles. 'Tis the custom of honest buccaneers and pirates to divide the spoils by the strict rule,—six shares for the commander, two for the master's mate, and other officers accordin' to their employment, with one share to every seaman alike. Think ye this bloody pick-purse dealt fairly by his crew? In yon sea-chest be the lawful shares of all the woesome lads he marooned this day. An' as much more as he durst skulk away with."

"Easy, now, old Fire-and-Brimstone," warned Bill, "or that temper will gain the upper hand. Don't spoil the show by bombardin' Blackbeard with that cross-eyed musket."

Now here was young Master Cockrell, a gentleman and a near kinsman of a high official who had sworn to hang every mother's son of a pirate that harried Carolina waters. And yet this godly youth was eager to lay hands on Blackbeard's treasure so as to divide it among the pirates who had been robbed of it. It was a twisted sense of justice, no doubt, and a code of morals turned topsy-turvy, but you are entreated to think not too harshly of such behavior. Master Cockrell had fallen into almighty bad company but the friends he had made displayed fidelity and readiness to serve him.

"How far will the chase lead us?" he inquired.

"Did you men come down this same creek in the pirogue?"

"Aye, in this very same mess o' pea soup and jungle," answered Bill Saxby. "Two miles in from the coast, at a venture, was where we stumbled on the canoe and tossed the Indians out of it. Beyond that the water spreads o'er the swamp with no fairway for a boat."

Once more they paddled for a short stretch and then repeated the stratagem of hauling into the dense growth of the mud-flat and pausing until the cock-boat had steered beyond the next elbow of the stream. It became more and more difficult to avoid the fallen trees and other obstructions, but Blackbeard was threading his course like a pilot acquainted with this dank and somber region. The pirogue ceased to lag purposely but had to be urged in order to keep within striking distance.

Twice they were compelled to climb out and shove clear of sunken entanglements or slimy shoals. But when they held themselves to listen, they could still hear the measured thump of oars against the pins, like the beat of a distant drum in the brooding silence of this melancholy solitude. They had struggled on for perhaps a mile and a half, in all, when Trimble Rogers ordered another halt. He was perplexed, like a hound uncertain of the scent. From the left bank of the creek, a smaller stream meandered blindly off into the swamp. Into which of these watercourses had Blackbeard continued his secret voyage?

Again they listened, and more anxiously than ever. The tell-tale thump of the oars had ceased. The only sounds in the bayou were the trickle of water from the tidal pools, the wind in the tree-tops, the rat-tat-tat of a woodpecker, and the scream of a bob-cat. With a foolish air of chagrin, Trimble Rogers rubbed his hoary pate and exclaimed:

"Whilst Bill and me were a-paddlin' this hollow log down-stream, we took no heed of a fork like this yonder. With the sun at our backs to guide us, we knew we was makin' easterly to fetch the coast. What say, Bill?"

"Cursed if I know. Spin a coin. The treasure has slipped us."

"Rot me if it has!" snarled the old man. "We'll push on as we are, in the bigger stream. That stinkin' ditch on my left hand looks too weedy and shallow to float a boat."

"It makes no odds. A gamester's choice," amiably agreed Bill.

They paddled with might and main, flinging caution to the winds. Jack Cockrell was well versed in handling one of these dugout canoes and his stout arms made Bill Saxby grunt and sweat to keep stroke with him. When the craft grounded they strove like madmen to push it clear. Trimble Rogers tore the water with a paddle, straining every sinew and condemning Blackbeard to the bottomless pit in a queer jargon of the Spanish, French, and English tongues. It required such a lurid vocabulary to give vent to his feelings. He was even more distressed when he sighted the clump of gum trees near by which he and Bill had purloined the pirogue. Beyond this the creek was impassable.

"Throwed a blank! Wear ship and drive back to the fork o' the waters," shouted the old man. "Hull down an' under though he be, we'll nab yon picaro, with his jolly treasure. Rapido, camaradas! Vivo!"

To make haste was easier said than done but the sluggish current was now in their favor and there was no more than a half mile to traverse under stress of furious exertion. The heavy canoe crashed through obstacles which had delayed the upward journey and they knew where to avoid the worst of the shoals. What fretted them was the fear that Blackbeard might have buried the sea-chest and descended the creek while they were engaged in this wild-goose chase. But this seemed unlikely and, moreover, old Trimble Rogers was the man to nose out the marks of the landing-place and the trail which must have been left.

Where the two streams joined, the pirogue turned and shot into the smaller one. To their surprise it presently widened and was like a tiny lagoon, with the water much clearer as if fed by springs. The view was less broken and there were glimpses of dry knolls in the swamp and verdure not so noxious and tanglesome. Along the edge of this pretty pond skimmed the pirogue while Trimble Rogers keenly scanned every inch of it for the imprint of a boat's keel. A hundred yards and the water again narrowed to a little creek. Impetuously the canoe swung to pass around a spit of land covered with a thicket of sweet bay.

There, no more than a dozen feet beyond, was the captain's cock-boat from the Revenge. Its bow had been pulled out of the water which deepened from a shelving bank. The boat was deserted but above the gunwale could be seen the iron-bound lid of the massive sea-chest. Those in the pirogue desired to behold nothing else. They were suddenly diverted by a tremendous yell which came booming out of the tall grass where it waved breast-high on the shore of the stream. A pistol barked and the ball clipped a straggling lock of Trimble Rogers' gray hair.

Driving his two seamen before him, Blackbeard rushed for his boat as fast as the bandy legs and clumsy sea-boots could carry him. In fancied security he had explored the nearest knoll. And now appeared this infernal canoe, surging full-tilt at his treasure chest.

Things happened rapido enough to glut even an old buccaneer. The consternation in the pirogue prevented any thought of checking headway with the paddles. This hollowed cypress log, narrow beamed and solid at both ends, still moved with a weighty momentum. Its astounded crew were otherwise occupied. Blackbeard appeared to have the advantage of them. Jack Cockrell ducked to the bottom of the canoe. Bill Saxby's eyes of baby blue were big and round as saucers as he wildly flourished his paddle as the only cudgel at hand.

With a whoop-la, old Trimble Rogers leaped to his feet, the long musket at his shoulder. Before he could aim at the savage, bushy figure of Blackbeard, the prow of the pirogue crashed into the side of the cock-boat, striking it well toward the stern. The ancient freebooter described a somersault and smote the water with a mighty splash, musket and all. Blowing like a grampus, he bobbed to the top, clawing the weeds from his eyes but still clutching the musket. Nobody paid his misfortune the slightest heed.

The water deepened suddenly, as has been said, where the current had scoured the bank. With the nose of the little boat pulled well up in the mud, the stern sloped almost level with the surface of the stream. The blunt, slanting bow of the pirogue banged into the plank gunwale and slid over it. The force of the blow dragged the cock-boat to one side and wrenched it free of the shore. It floated at the end of a tether but the bow of the canoe pressed the stern under and tipped it until the water rushed in.

Listed far over, the sea-chest slid a trifle and this was enough to push the gunwale clear under. The boat filled and capsized, what with the weight of the chest and the pressure of the canoe's fore part. Down to the oozy bed sank Blackbeard's treasure.

The arch-pirate himself came charging out of the marsh-grass in time to witness this lamentable disaster. His hoarse ejaculations were too dreadful for a Christian reader's ears. Dumfounded for an instant, he gathered his wits to fire another pistol at the pirogue. The ball flew wild, as was to be expected of a marksman in a state of mind so distraught. He had overlooked those two poor seamen of his who had been impressed to bury the treasure, after which they were presumably to be pistoled or knocked on the head. Dead men told no tales. Doomed wretches, they were quick to snatch from this confusion the precious hope of life.

The pockmarked fellow, who was powerfully built, whirled like a cat as he heard Blackbeard's pistol discharged just behind him. There was no time to draw and cock another pistol. The seaman fairly flew at the pirate captain's throat. Down they toppled and vanished in the grass together. A moment later Blackbeard bounded to his feet, a bloody dirk in his hand. He had done for the poor fellow who lay groaning where he fell. Terrified by this, the other seaman wheeled and fled to the bank of the creek, seeking the pirogue as his only refuge.

He leaped for it but his feet slipped in the treacherous mud and his impetus was checked so that he tumbled forward, striking the solid side of the dugout with great force. He was splashing in the water but his exertions were feeble. Either the collision had stunned him or he was unable to swim. Bill Saxby and Jack Cockrell were trying to swing the canoe clear of the boat and effect a landing. Trimble Rogers had rescued himself from the creek and was ramming a dry charge into his dripping musket. Blackbeard was a deadly menace and their attention was fixed on him.

When they endeavored to lend a hand to the helpless seaman he had sunk beneath the surface of the roily stream. They saw him come up and turn a ghastly face to them, but he went down like a stone before a hand could clutch at him. A few bubbles and this was the end of him. Jack Cockrell hesitated with a brave impulse to dive in search of him although he knew the bottom was a tangle of rotted trees, but just then Bill Saxby yelled to him to follow ashore with a paddle for a weapon. The luckless seaman was already drowned, this was as good as certain, and Jack jumped from the pirogue.

Blackbeard had halted his onrush and he wavered when he beheld stout Bill Saxby within a few strides of him and long Trimble Rogers galloping through the grass with his musket. Another pistol shot or two would not stop these three antagonists and a buffet from one of those hewn paddles would dash out a man's brains. The most ferocious of all pirates for once preferred to run away and live to fight another day. His boat denied him, he whirled about to plunge through the tall, matted grass. He was running in the direction of the dry knoll whence he had appeared.

Infuriated by the fate of the two seamen, Trimble Rogers made a try at shooting him on the wing but the musket ball failed to find the mark. It was necessary to hunt him down for the sake of their own safety. They might have gone their way in the pirogue but this would have been to abandon the sea-chest without an effort to drag it up or fix its location.

Now it might seem an easy matter for these pursuers, two of them young and active, to run down this fugitive Blackbeard, encumbered as he was by middle age and dissipation. They put after him boldly, with little fear of his pistols. In this dense cover he would have to fire at them haphazard and he was unlikely to tarry and wait for them. They saw him in glimpses as he fled from one grassy patch to another, or burst out of a leafy thicket, the great beard streaming over his shoulders like studding-sails, the red turban of calico a vivid blotch of color.

Nimble as they were, however, they failed to overtake him. This was because he was familiar with this landscape of bog and hummock and pine knoll. Jack Cockrell fell into a hidden quagmire and had to be fished out by main strength. Bill Saxby was caught amidst the tenacious vines, like a bull by the horns, and old Trimble came a cropper in a patch of saw-tooth palmetto. They straggled to the nearest knoll after Blackbeard had crossed it. Then he followed a ridge which led in the direction of another of these dry islands.

The pursuers halted to gaze from this slight elevation. There was not a solitary glimpse of the crimson turban. Trimble Rogers plowed through the prickly ash, short of wind and temper, with the musket again ready for action. His language was hot enough to flash the powder in the pan.

"Lost him a'ready, ye lubbers, whilst I fetched up the rear?" he scolded. "Leave the old dog to find the trail. I be hanged if I take him alive for Stede Bonnet. What say, Bill? Skin and stuff him for a trophy——"

"First catch the slippery son o' Satan," tartly answered Bill. "He hides away like a hare. You can track him, no doubt, Trimble, but the sun will be down ere long. I'll not pass the night in this cursed puddle of a place."

Just then Jack Cockrell roved far enough to find on the knoll a small pit freshly dug, with a spade and pick beside it. Like excited children, his two comrades ran to inspect the hole which Blackbeard's seamen had dug ready for the treasure chest. Then they scattered to explore the knoll in search of signs to indicate where previous hoards might have been buried. Trimble Rogers scouted like a red Indian, eager to find traces of upturned earth, or the leaf mould disturbed, or marks of an axe on the pine trees as symbols of secret guidance. It was a futile quest, possibly because the high spring tides, when swept by easterly gales, had now and then crept back from the coast to cover the knoll and obliterate man's handiwork.

Like a hunter bewitched, the gray buccaneer was absorbed in this rare pastime until Bill Saxby exclaimed:

"Is there no wit in our addled pates? Quit this dashed folly! What of the treasure chest that was spilled from the boat?"

"It won't take wings. Wait a bit," growled Trimble. "Madre de Dios, but there must be more of it here. This truant Cap'n Teach knew the road well. Did ye mark how he doubled for the knoll, like a fox to its hole?"

Jack Cockrell ended the argument when he spoke up, with a shamefaced air:

"We are three heartless men! One of the seamen is drowned, rest his soul, and we could not save the poor wretch. But the other fellow was stabbed and lies in the grass near the stream. For all we know, there may be life in him."

"Heartless? 'Tis monstrous of us," cried Bill Saxby. "This greed for pirates' gold is like a poison."

They hastened to retrace their steps. The wounded seaman was breathing his last when they reached his side. They could not have prolonged his life had they remained with him. Jack Cockrell stroked his damp forehead and murmured:

"Farewell to ye, Jesse Strawn. Any message before you slip your cable?"

There was a faint whisper of:

"Scuppered, lad! Take warnin' and avast this cruel piratin' or you'll get it. A few words from the Bible 'ud ease me off."

To Jack's amazement, the veteran sinner of the lot, old Trimble Rogers, fumbled in his breeches and withdrew a small book carefully wrapped in canvas. Solemnly he hooked behind his ears a pair of huge, horn-rimmed spectacles and knelt beside the dying pirate. In the manner of a priest the buccaneer intoned a chapter of Holy Writ which he appeared to know by rote. Then he said a prayer in a powerful broken voice. Silence followed. The others waited with bared heads until Trimble said:

"His soul has passed. Shall we give the poor lad a decent burial?"

"His grave is ready. He helped dig it himself," said Bill Saxby. "And may his ghost be a torment to the fiend that slew him."

It seemed a fitting suggestion. In the freshly made treasure pit on the knoll they laid the dead pirate and used the spade to cover him. Jack Cockrell had a sheath knife with which he fashioned a rude cross and hacked on it:

JESSE STRAWN A. D. 1718

"Aye, his ghost will flit to plague this Cap'n Teach," said Trimble Rogers. "We can leave Jesse Strawn to square his own account. Now for the sea-chest, though I misdoubt we can fish it up."



CHAPTER X

THE SEA URCHIN AND THE CARPENTER'S MATE

FOR the sake of a treasure sordid and blood-stained, it would seem shabby to overlook the fate of hapless Joe Hawkridge marooned along with the hands of the Revenge who were suspected of plotting mutiny. His behavior was courageous and unselfish, for he could have fled back into the swamp when Blackbeard's wily attack threw the camp into tumult. From a sense of duty he flung himself into the fray. What friends he had in the ship were those of the decenter sort who were tired of wanton brutalities and of a master who was no better than a lunatic.

When the sloop opened fire with her guns, it was time to surrender. Unhurt save for a few scratches and a gorgeous black eye, Joe was dragged to the beach and thrown into a boat. Promptly the armed pinnace took them in tow, as arranged beforehand. Several of the prisoners had visited this rendezvous at Cherokee Inlet during a previous cruise and had some knowledge of the lay of the coast. Five or six miles out were certain shoals of sand scarcely lifted above high tide, so desolate that nothing whatever grew upon them nor was there any means of obtaining fresh water.

"A pretty fancy,—to cast us where he can enjoy the sight of it when the ship sails out," said one of them who held a wounded comrade in his arms.

"Some trading vessel may sight us in the nick o' time," hopefully suggested Joe. "Never say die!"

"Trust most honest skippers to give the Inlet a wide berth," was the lugubrious reply. "This harbor was used by pirates afore Blackbeard's time. I was a silly 'prentice-boy, same as you, Joe, wi' Cap'n Willum Kidd when we lay in here to caulk his galley for the long voyage to Madagascar."

"A poor figger of a pirate was that same Kidd," spoke up another. "He ne'er scuttled a ship nor fought an action. An' his treasure was all in my eye. What did he swing for, at Execution Dock? For crackin' the skull of his gunner with a wooden bucket."

"They can't h'ist this Cap'n Teach to the same gibbet any too soon to please me, Sam," croaked a horse-faced rogue with two fingers chopped off. "He's gone and murdered all us men, as sure as blazes."

Joe Hawkridge held his peace and wondered what had become of his partner, Jack Cockrell, waiting alone in the pirogue. In the infernal commotion at the camp, Joe had failed to note whether Bill Saxby and Trimble Rogers had betaken themselves off or had been among those killed. There was the faint hope that these trusty messengers might find their way back to Captain Stede Bonnet's ship and so hasten his coming.

The boats crept over the burnished surface of the harbor and passed the nearest islands which were green and wooded. Beyond them shone the gently heaving sea, with the distant gleam of a patch of sandy shoal ringed about with a necklace of surf. It was remote enough from any other land to daunt the strongest swimmer. The boats kept on until they had rounded to leeward of this ghastly prison. There was no means of resistance. The captives were driven ashore by force of arms, carrying a few of their wounded with them.

With emotions beyond the power of speech, they stared at the pinnace as the oars splashed on the return journey to the Revenge. Joe Hawkridge wept a little, perplexed that men could be so cruel to their own shipmates. And yet what could be expected of pirates debased enough to be Blackbeard's loyal followers? Recovering from their first stupor, the twenty able-bodied survivors began to ransack the strip of naked sand on which they had been marooned. It was no more than an acre in extent. A few small fish were found in a pool left by the falling tide and perhaps a hundred turtle eggs were uncovered during the afternoon. This merely postponed starvation.

There was not much bickering. In the shadow of certain death, these outlaws of the sea seemed to have acquired a spirit of resignation which was akin to dignity. They had lost the game. In their own lingo, it was the black spot for all hands of 'em. With the coolness of night they revived to bathe in the surf which made their thirst less hard to bear. There was not much sleep. Men walked in restless circles, looking up at the stars, muttering to themselves, or scanning the sea which had known their crimes and follies.



Joe Hawkridge scooped out a bed for himself in the sand and dropped off to sleep by spells, with dreams of ease and quiet ashore and learning to be a gentleman. It was daylight when shouts startled him. The other derelicts were in a frenzy of agitation. They capered and hugged each other, and made unearthly sounds. Joe brushed the sand from his eyes and saw a small vessel approaching the tiny island. Her rig was made out to be that of a snow, which was very like a brig, the difference being in the larger main-topsail and the absence of a spanker or after steering-sail.

Such trading craft as this snow came coasting down from Salem and other New England ports to Virginia and the Carolinas laden with molasses, rum, salt, cider, mackerel, woodenware, Muscavado sugar, and dried codfish. They bartered for return cargoes and carried no specie, wherefore pirates like Stede Bonnet seldom molested them excepting to take such stores as might be needed and sometimes actually to pay for them. They were the prey of miscreants of Blackbeard's stripe who destroyed and slew for the pleasure of it.

This trim little snow was making to the southward in fancied security, having picked up a landfall, as the marooned pirates conjectured. No doubt her master had failed to receive warning that Blackbeard was in these waters and he was running his risk of encountering other marauders. He must have seen that there were people in distress on the tide-washed strip of sand. The snow shifted her helm and fired a gun. The marooned wretches could scarce credit their amazing good fortune but a grave, slow-spoken fellow who had been a carpenter's mate in the Revenge thought the rejoicing premature.

"When that God-fearin' skipper takes a look at us, he will sheer off and clap on sail, lads. For shipwrecked sailors you are a pizen lot o' mugs. The only blighted one of ye what's the leastwise respectable is me."

Here was a terrible misgiving which clouded the bright anticipations. They were, indeed, an unlovely cargo for the little trading vessel to take on board. One of them whipped out a pair of scissors and hastily sawed at his unkempt whiskers while his comrades stood in line and waited their turn. Others discarded gaudy kerchiefs and pistol-belts, or kicked off Spanish jack-boots. Scraps of gold lace were also unpopular. But they could not get rid of scarred faces and rum-reddened noses and the other hall-marks of their trade.

To their immense relief, the snow displayed no signs of alarm but sailed as close as the shoaling water permitted and dipped her colors. The pirates flattered themselves that they were not as frightful as the carpenter's mate had painted them. And this New England shipmaster was a merciful man who would not leave his fellow mortals to perish. They saw a boat lowered from the snow and into it jumped half a dozen sailors, soberly clad in dungaree, with round straw hats on their heads. With a gush of gratitude, the pirates swore to deal courteously by these noble merchant mariners and to repay them in whatever manner possible.

Out into the murmuring surf rushed the mild-mannered rascals, eager to grasp the boat and haul it up. It was Joe Hawkridge, hovering in the background, who raised the first cry of astonishment. His voice was so affrighted that it quavered. Before the boat was half-way from the vessel, he perceived that these were no sedate seamen from the Massachusetts Colony, even though they were in dungaree and round straw hats. He was gazing at some of Ned Rackham's evil pirates whom he had last beheld on the shattered deck of the Plymouth Adventure where they had been left to build a raft for themselves!

The devil had looked after his own. They had floated away from the stranded ship and instead of landing on the beach had been rescued by this unfortunate snow whose crew had been disposed of in some violent manner. This much Joe Hawkridge comprehended, although his mind was awhirl. He was better off marooned. He had helped to turn the guns of the Plymouth Adventure against these very same men when they had been blown out of the after cabin and the ship retaken by Captain Jonathan Wellsby.

Whatever other plans they had in store, the first business would be to kill Joe Hawkridge. This was painfully obvious. He retreated still farther behind his companions and had a confused idea of digging into the sand and burying himself from view. The discovery that these were Blackbeard's pirates in the boat created general confusion but there was no fear of instant death. It was a situation excessively awkward for the marooned company but nevertheless open to parley and argument.

By hurried agreement, the carpenter's mate, Peter Tobey by name, was chosen as spokesman. Before he began to talk with the men in the boat, Joe Hawkridge called to him in piteous accents and begged him to step back in rear of the crowd for a moment. Tobey shouted to the boat to wait outside the surf and not attempt a landing.

"What's the row, Joe?" he asked, with a kindly smile. "'Tis a disappointment for all of us,—this tangle with Rackham's crew,—but why any worse for you?"

"I can't tell it all, Peter, but my life is forfeit once they lay hands on me."

"What tarradiddle is this? As I remember it in the Revenge, when all hands of us were cruisin' together, ye had no mortal enemies."

"It happened in the Plymouth Adventure," answered Joe. "There be men in yon boat that 'ud delight in flayin' me alive. I swear it, Peter, by my mother's name. Give me up, and my blood is on your head."

The boy's words carried conviction. The stolid carpenter's mate pondered and knitted his bushy brows.

"I never did a wilful murder yet," said he. "Mallet and chisel come readier to my fist than a cutlass. Bide here, Joe. Let me get my bearings. This has the look of a ticklish matter for the lot of us. I shall be keepin' a weather eye lifted for squalls."

In mortal fear of discovery by the men in the boat, Joe flattened himself behind a palmetto log which had drifted to the other side of the island. Here he was hidden unless the boat should make a landing. The carpenter's mate waded out to join his companions who were amiably conversing with Ned Rackham's pirates. They had all been shipmates either in the Revenge or the Triumph sloop and there was boisterous curiosity concerning the divers adventures while they had been apart. Rackham's crew had been reduced to eighteen men when they were lucky enough to capture the snow, it was learned. With this small company he dared not go pirating on his own account and so had decided to rejoin Blackbeard.

"Is Ned Rackham aboard the snow?" asked Peter Tobey of the boat's coxswain.

"He is all o' that, matey, though the big bos'n of the Plymouth Adventure shoved a knife in his ribs to the hilt. He is flat in a bunk but he gives the orders an' it's jump at the word."

"A hard man to kill," said Peter Tobey. "Take me aboard. 'Tis best I have speech with him. Let the people wait here on the cay. They can stand another hour of it."

There was fierce protest among the marooned pirates but the carpenter's mate gruffly demanded to know if they wished to be carried into the harbor and turned over to Blackbeard. This gave the mob something to think about and they permitted the boat to pull away from them without much objection.

"A rough joke on you lads, I call it, to be dumped on this bit o' purgatory," said the coxswain to Peter Tobey. "The great Cap'n Teach must ha' been in one of his tantrums."

"It had been long brewing, as ye know," answered the carpenter's mate. "These men with you in the snow 'ud sooner follow Ned Rackham, flint-hearted though he be, than to rejoin the Revenge."

"Not so loud," cautioned the coxswain. "We'll see which way the cat is going to jump. Us poor devils is sore uneasy at findin' how you were dealt with."

"What of the master and crew of the snow?" asked Tobey. "Were they snuffed out? That 'ud be Rackham's way."

"No, we set 'em off in a boat, within sight of the coast. Ned Rackham was too shrewd to bloody his hands, bein' helpless in this tub of a snow which could neither fight nor show her heels if she was chased."

Few men as there were aboard the snow, they were smartly disciplined and kept things shipshape, as Peter Tobey noted when he climbed on deck. A few minutes later he was summoned into the small cabin. Propped up in the skipper's berth, Sailing-Master Ned Rackham had a pinched and ghastly look. He was a young man, with clean-cut, handsome features, and a certain refinement of manner when he cared to assume it. The rumor was that he was the black sheep of an English house of some distinction and that he had enlisted in the Royal Navy under a false name.

"What is this mare's-nest, my good Tobey?" said he as the carpenter's mate stood diffidently fumbling with his cap. "Marooned? Twenty men of you on a reef of sand? Were ye naughty boys whilst I was absent?"

"No more than them I could name who planned to go a-cruisin' in the Plymouth Adventure," doggedly replied Peter Tobey who resented the tone of sneering patronage.

"Fie, fie! You talk boldly for a man in your situation. Never mind! Why the honor of this visit?"

"To make terms, Master Rackham. If us twenty men consent to serve you——"

"You babble of terms?" was the biting interruption. "I can leave you to perish on the sand, as ye no doubt deserve, or I can carry you in with me, when I report to Captain Teach."

"But there's another choice, which hasn't escaped you," persisted the intrepid carpenter's mate. "Enlist us in your service and you'll have nigh on forty men. This snow mounts a few old swivels and you must ha' found muskets in her. With forty men, Master Rackham, there's no occasion to bow to Blackbeard's whimsies. You can h'ist the Jolly Roger for yourself and lay 'longside a bigger ship to take and cruise in. I've heard tell of a great buccaneer that started for himself in a pinnace and captured a galleon as tall as a church."

Ned Rackham's eyes flashed. Indeed, this was what he had in mind. This score of recruits would make the venture worth undertaking. Men were essential. Given enough of them to handle the snow and a boarding party besides, and he would not hesitate to shift helm and bear away to sea again.

"You will sign articles, then?" he demanded.

"Aye, I can speak for all, Master Rackham. What else is there for us? Hold fast, I would except one man. He must be granted safe conduct, on your sacred honor."

"His name, Tobey?"

"That matters not. Pledge me first. He has no more stomach for piracy and will be set ashore at some port."

"A pig in a poke?" cried Rackham, with an ugly smile. "If I refuse, what?"

"You will have sulky men that may turn against you some day."

"And I can leave you to rot where you are, with your nonsense of 'making terms,'" was the harsh rejoinder.

"But you won't do that," argued Peter Tobey. "Your own fortune hangs on enlisting us twenty lads. You bear Blackbeard no more love than we do."

Ned Rackham was making no great headway with this stubborn carpenter's mate who was playing strong cards of his own.

"A drawn bout, Tobey," said he, with a change of front. "No more backing and filling. You ask a small favor. Fetch your man along, whoever he may be. He shall be done no harm by me."

"Even though he made a mortal enemy of you, Master Rackham?"

"Enough, Peter. I have many enemies and scores to settle. You have my assurance but I demand the lad's name."

"Not without his permission," declared Tobey. "Set me ashore and I will confer with him."

Grudgingly Rackham consented, unwilling to have a hitch in the negotiations. In a somber humor, the carpenter's mate returned to his impatient comrades on the island. They crowded about him and he briefly delivered the message, that they were desired to cruise under Ned Rackham's flag. This delighted them, as the only way out of a fatal dilemma. Then Tobey went over to sit down upon the palmetto log behind which Joe Hawkridge still sprawled like a turtle. The anxious boy poked up his head to say:

"What cheer, Peter? A plaguey muddle you found it, I'll bet."

"Worse'n that, Joe. Rackham wouldn't clinch it with his oath unless I told him your name. I plead with him for safe conduct."

"I'd not trust his oath on a stack o' Bibles, once he set eyes on me," exclaimed Joe. "As soon put my fist to my own death warrant as go aboard with him."

"That may be," said Peter Tobey, "but you will have friends. You can't expect us to refuse to sail on account o' you."

"Leave me here, then," cried the boy. "I'll not call it deserting me. Take your men aboard the snow. Tell Ned Rackham you have the fellow amongst 'em who implored the safe conduct. Pick out some harmless lad that was saucy to Rackham in the Revenge, a half-wit like that Robinson younker that was the sailing-master's own cabin boy. He was allus blubberin' that Rackham 'ud kill him some day."

"No half-wit about you," admiringly quoth the carpenter's mate. "But, harkee, Joe, you will die in slow misery. Better a quick bullet from Rackham's pistol."

"Find some way to send off a little food and water, Peter, and I will set tight on this desert island. And mayhap you will dance at the end of a rope afore I shuffle off."

"A hard request, Joe," replied the puzzled Tobey. "Unless I can come off again with some of our own men, how can it be done? Let Rackham's crew suspect I am leaving a man behind and they will rout you out."

"And they all love me, like a parson loves a pirate," grinned Joe. "I shot 'em full of spikes and bolts from a nine-pounder in the Plymouth Adventure."

"I shall use my best endeavor, so help me," sighed Peter Tobey. "What for did I ever quit carpenterin' to go a-piratin'? 'Tis the worst basket of chips that ever was."

"No sooner do I crawl out of one hole than I tumble into another," very truthfully observed Joe Hawkridge. "Insomuch as I've allus crawled out, you and me'll shed no more tears, Peter. There's a kick in me yet."

The disconsolate carpenter's mate returned to his fellow pirates and bade them go off to the snow. First, however, he extracted from every man the solemn promise that he would not divulge the secret of Joe Hawkridge's presence nor reveal the fact that he had remained behind. They were eager to promise anything. Several of them stole over to tell him furtive farewells. They displayed no great emotion. The trade they followed was not apt to make them turn soft over such a tragic episode as this.

When the snow was ready to take her departure, with almost forty seasoned pirates to seek their fortunes anew, the wind died to a calm and the little vessel drifted within easy vision of the sandy island through a long afternoon. Peter Tobey tormented himself to find some pretext for smuggling food and water ashore. He invented a tale of a precious gold snuff-box which must have fallen out of his pocket and begged permission to go and search for it. But Ned Rackham sent up word that he had no notion of being delayed by a fool's errand, should a breeze spring up. He was not at all anxious to linger so close to Cherokee Inlet whence Blackbeard might sight the spars of the snow and perhaps weigh anchor in the Revenge.

Soon after dark the sails filled with a soft wind which drew the snow clear of the coast. Peter Tobey had been mightily busy with an empty cask. In it he stowed meat and biscuit and a bag of onions, stealthily abstracted from the storeroom while his own companions stood guard against surprise. This stuff was packed around two jugs of water tightly stoppered. Then Peter headed up the cask with professional skill and watched the opportunity to lower it from the vessel's bow where he was unseen.

The wind and tide were favorable to carrying the cask in the direction of the little patch of sea-washed sand upon which was marooned the solitary young mariner, Joe Hawkridge. The carpenter's mate saw the cask drift past the side of the snow and roll in the silvery wake. Slowly it vanished in the darkness and he said to himself, in a prayer devoutly earnest:

"That boy deserves a slant o' luck, and may the good God let him have it this once. Send the cask to the beach, and I vow to go a-piratin' never again."



CHAPTER XI

JACK JOURNEYS AFOOT

IT is often said that a thing is not lost if you know where it is. This was Jack Cockrell's opinion concerning that weighty sea-chest which had splashed to the bottom of the sluggish stream in the heart of the Cherokee swamp. With young Bill Saxby and eager old Trimble Rogers he hastened from the grave of the pirate seaman whom they had buried on the knoll and fetched up at the shore where the pirogue had been left. Beside it floated Blackbeard's boat filled with water.

Having cut two or three long poles, they sounded the depth and prodded in the muddy bed to find the treasure chest. It had sunk no more than eight feet below the surface, as the tide then stood, which was not much over the head of a tall man. The end of a pole struck something solid, after considerable poking about. It was not rough, like a sunken log, and further investigation with the poles convinced them that they were thumping the lid of the chest.

"D'ye suppose you could muster breath to dive and bend a line to one o' the handles, Master Cockrell?" suggested Trimble Rogers. "Here's a coil of stout stuff in Cap'n Teach's boat what he used for a painter."

"The bottom of the creek is too befouled," promptly objected Jack, "and I confess it daunts me to think of meeting that drownded corpse down there. Try it yourself, if you like."

"I be needed above water to handle the musket if Blackbeard sneaks back to bang at us with his pistols," was the evasive reply. The mention of the corpse had given old Trimble a distaste for the task. To his petulant question, Bill Saxby protested that he couldn't swim a blessed stroke and he sensibly added:

"What if you did get a rope's end belayed to a handle of the chest? Even if the strain didn't part the line, we couldn't heave away in this tipsy canoe. And I am blamed certain we can't drag the chest ashore lackin' purchase and tackles."

"The smell o' treasure warps my judgment," grumpily confessed Trimble Rogers. "We ain't properly rigged to h'ist that chest from where she lays, and that's the fact."

"Give us the gear and we'd have it out and cracked open as pretty as you please," said Bill. "Set up a couple o' spars for shears, stay 'em from the bank, rig double blocks, and grapplin' irons for a diver to work with——"

"Which is exactly what Cap'n Teach will be doin' of when he finds his ship again," lamented the buccaneer.

"He will be some time findin' his ship afoot," grimly chuckled Bill. "We have naught to smash his boat with, but we'll just take it along with us."

"If we make haste to report to Captain Stede Bonnet," spoke up Jack Cockrell, "he may make sail in time to give Blackbeard other things to think on than this treasure chest. And it is my notion that the need of fitting the Revenge for action is too urgent to spare a crew to attempt this errand."

"We shall have it yet," cried Trimble, much consoled. "And Stede Bonnet'll blithely furnish the men and gear. For a mere babe, Master Cockrell, ye leak wisdom like a colander. Our duty is to tarry no longer at this mad business."

"The first sound word I've heard out of the old barnacle, eh, Jack?" said Bill Saxby. "We must be out of this swamp by night and layin' a course for Cap'n Bonnet and the Royal James."

"Whilst you empty Blackbeard's boat of water so we can tow it, let me make a rude chart," was Jack's happy idea. "Some mishap or other may overtake us ere we get the chance to seek the treasure again. And our own memory of this pest-hole of a swamp may trick us."

Bill Saxby's tattered diary supplied a scrap of paper and Jack dug charred splinters from the inside of the canoe which enabled him to draw a charcoal sketch or map. It traced the smaller stream from the fork where it had branched off, the stretch in which it widened like a tiny lagoon or bayou, and the point of shore just beyond which the pirogue had unexpectedly rammed Blackbeard's boat. A cross designated the spot where the treasure chest had sunk in eight feet of water.

The knoll and the grave of Seaman Jesse Strawn were also indicated, with the distance estimated in paces and the bearings set down by the position of the sun.

"There," said Jack, well pleased with his handiwork, "and once we are aboard ship, I can make fair copies on parchment, one for each of us."

"Thankee, lad," gratefully exclaimed Trimble Rogers who now had something to live for. "'Twas a fond dream o' mine, when I sailed wi' the great Cap'n Edward Davis in the South Sea, some day to blink at a chart what showed where the gold was hid."

They were, indeed, recovered from the intoxication of treasure and recalled to realizing the obligation that was upon them. They had swerved from it but now they pressed forward to finish the appointed journey. The canoe moved down to the fork of the waters with the light cock-boat skittering in its wake and perhaps the unhappy Blackbeard, stranded in the swamp, hurled after them a volley of those curses for which he was renowned. Once Jack Cockrell laughed aloud, explaining to his laboring comrades:

"Captain Teach will be combing the burrs from his grand beard when he boards his ship again. He may get hung by the chin in a thicket."

"He's sure to spend this night in the swamp, blast him," earnestly observed Bill, "and the mosquitoes'll riddle his hide."

"And may Jesse Strawn lose no time in hauntin' him," said Trimble Rogers.

There was an hour of daylight to spare when they had ascended the larger creek as far as the canoe could be paddled. There they disembarked and hid the dugout and the cock-boat in the overhanging bushes where they could be found again in case of a forced retreat. Bill and Jack burdened themselves with the sack of food and the water jug while the old buccaneer set out in the lead as a guide. It was irksome progress for a time, but gradually the ground became drier and the foliage was more open. Dusk found them safely emerged from the great Cherokee swamp and in a pleasant forest of long-leaf pine with a carpet of brown needles.

In fear of Indians, they dared not kindle a fire and so stretched themselves in their wet and muddy rags and slept like dead men. What awakened Jack Cockrell before sunrise was a series of groans from Trimble Rogers who sat with his back against a tree while he rubbed his legs. Ashamed at being heard, he grumpily explained:

"Cord and faggot 'ud torment me no worse than this hell-begotten rheumatism. I be free of it in a ship but the land reeks with foul vapors. It hurt me cruel at Cartagena in the year of——"

"But can you walk all day, in such misery as that?" anxiously interrupted Jack.

"If not, I'll make shift to crawl," said the old sea dog.

It was apparent to Jack and also to Bill Saxby that the ordeal of the swamp had crippled their companion whose bodily strength had been overtaxed. They debated whether to try to return to the coast and risk a voyage in the canoe but Trimble Rogers swore by all the saints in the calendar that he was done with the pestilent swamp. He would push on in spite of the rheumatism. His hardy spirit was unbroken. And so they resumed the march, the suffering buccaneer hobbling with the musket as a staff or with a strong arm supporting him.

Halts were frequent and progress very slow. Now and then they had glimpses of the blue sea and so knew that they held the course true. It had been reckoned that two days would suffice to bring them to the bay in which Stede Bonnet's ship was anchored. By noon of this first day, however, it was plainly evident that Trimble Rogers was done for. He uttered no complaints, and withheld the groans behind his set teeth, but his lank body was a-tremble with pain and fatigue. Whenever he sank down to rest they had to raise him up and set him on his legs again before he could totter a little way farther.

"What say, Jack, to slingin' him on a pole, neck and heels?" suggested Bill Saxby. "Can we make him fast with our belts?"

"And choke him to death? In Charles Town I saw Captain Bonnet's pirates carry their wounded in litters woven of boughs."

The suffering Trimble put a stop to this by shouting:

"Avast wi' the maunderin' nonsense! Push on, lads, and leave this old hulk be. Many a goodly man have I seen drop in the jungle. What matters it? Speed ye to Cap'n Bonnet."

"Here is one pirate that won't desert a shipmate," declared Bill Saxby. "And how can we push on without you, old True-Penny, to lay your nose to the trail? I took no heed o' the marks and landfalls."

"Like a sailor ashore, mouth open and eyes shut," rasped the buccaneer of Hispaniola.

"Methinks I might find my way in this Carolina country," ventured Jack Cockrell. "It would be easier for a landsman like myself than for Bill who is city-bred and a seaman besides."

"More wisdom from the stripling," said Trimble. "Willing as I be to die sooner than delay ye and so vex Stede Bonnet, it 'ud please me to live to overhaul that sea chest of Blackbeard's."

"I'll stand by this condemned old relic," amiably agreed Bill Saxby. "Do you request Cap'n Bonnet to send a party to salvage us, Jack."

"He will take pleasure in it, Bill. Before I go let me help you find shelter,—dry limbs for props and a thatch of palmetto leaves."

"Take no thought of us," urged Trimble. "Trust me to set this lazy oaf to work. Now listen, Jack, and carefully. Cap'n Bonnet's ship waits in the Cape Fear River, twelve leagues to the north'ard of us. You will find her betwixt a bay of the mainland and a big-sized island where the river makes in from the sea. There will be a lookout kept and I can tell ye where to meet a boat."

With a memory as retentive as a printed page, the keen-eyed old wanderer described the landscape league by league, the streams and their direction, the hills which were prominent, the broad stretches of savannah or grassy meadow, the belts of pine forest, the tongues of swamp which had to be avoided. Jack was compelled to repeat the detailed instructions over and over, and he was a far more studious pupil than when snuffy Parson Throckmorton had rapped his knuckles and fired him with rebellious dreams of piracy. At length, the buccaneer was willing to acknowledge:

"Unless an Indian drive an arrow through the lad's brisket, Bill, I can trust him to find our ship. Best give him the musket."

"Me shoulder that carronade and trudge a dozen leagues?" objected Jack. "I travel light and leave the ordnance with you."

They insisted on his taking more than a third of the food but he refused to deprive them of the water jug. There would be streams enough to slake his thirst. It was an affectionate parting. Bill Saxby's innocent blue eyes were suffused and his chubby face sorrowful at the thought that they might not meet again. Trimble Rogers fished out his battered little Bible and quoted a few verses, as appeared to be his habit on all solemn occasions. Jack Cockrell knew him well enough by now to find it not incongruous. Among this vanishing race of sea fighters had been many a hero of the most fervent piety. Their spirit was akin to that of Francis Drake who summoned his crew to prayers before he cleared for action.

And in this wise did Master Jack Cockrell set out to bear a message from comrades in dire distress. Moreover, in his hands were the lives of Joe Hawkridge and those other marooned seamen, as he had every reason to believe. It was a grave responsibility to be thrust upon a raw lad in his teens who had been so carefully nurtured by his fretful guardian of an uncle, Mr. Peter Arbuthnot Forbes. Jack thought of this and said to himself, with a smile:

"A few weeks gone, and I was locked in my room without any dinner for loitering with Stede Bonnet's pirates at the Charles Town tavern. My education has been swift since then."

He was expectant of meeting no end of peril and hardship and he fought down a sense of dread that was not to his discredit. But it was so decreed that he should pass secure and unmolested. At first he went too fast, without husbanding his strength, and loped along like a hound whenever the country was clear of brushwood. This wore him down and he failed to watch carefully enough for his landmarks. Toward the end of the day he became confused because he could not discern the sea even by climbing a tree. But he tried to keep bearing to the northeast until the sun went down. Afraid of losing himself entirely and ignorant of the lay of the land by night, he made his bivouac in a grove of sycamore saplings and imagined Indians were creeping up whenever the leaves rustled.

This fear of roaming savages troubled him next day as he wearily trudged through this primeval wilderness unknown to white settlers. It spurred him on despite his foot-sore fatigue and he was making the journey more rapidly than old Trimble Rogers, for all his cunning woodcraft, had been able to accomplish it. Almost at the end of his endurance, the plucky lad discerned the sheen of a broad water in the twilight and so came to the Cape Fear River.

He had worried greatly lest he might have veered too far inland but there was the wooded bay and the fore-land crowned with dead pines which had been swept by forest fire. And out beyond it was the island, of the size and shape described by Trimble Rogers, making a harbor from the sea which rolled to the horizon rim.

But no tall brig, nor any other vessel rode at anchor in this silent and lonely haven. Jack had been told precisely where to look for it. He had made no mistake. Some emergency had caused Captain Stede Bonnet to make sail and away.

A king's ship or some other hostile force might have compelled him to slip his cable in haste, reflected Jack as he descended to the shore of the bay. It was most unlike the chivalrous Stede Bonnet to abandon two of his faithful seamen without an effort to succor them. Endeavoring to comfort himself with this surmise, the sorely disappointed boy paced the sand far into the night and gazed in vain for the glimmer of a fire or the spark of a signal lantern in a ship's rigging. He could not bear to think of the dark prospect should no help betide him.

Some time before day he was between waking and sleeping when a queer delusion distracted him. Humming in his ears was the refrain of a song which was both familiar and hauntingly pleasant. It seemed to charm away his poignant anxieties, to lull him with a feeling of safety. He wondered if his troublesome adventures had made him light-headed. He moved not a muscle but listened to this phantom music and noted that it sounded louder and clearer instead of fading away. And still he refused to believe that it was anything more than a drowsy mockery.

At length a vagrant breeze brought him a snatch of this enjoyable chorus in deeper, stronger volume and he leaped to his feet with a shout. It was no hallucination. Lusty seamen were singing in time to the beat of their oars, and Jack Cockrell knew it for the favorite song of Stede Bonnet's crew. He could distinguish the words as they rolled them out in buoyant, stentorian harmony:

"An' when my precious leg was lopt, Just for a bit of fun I picks it up, on t'other hopt, An' rammed it in a gun. 'What's that for?' cries out Ginger Dick, 'What for? my jumpin' beau? Why, to give the lubbers one more kick,' Yo, ho, with the rum below!"



CHAPTER XII

A PRIVATE ACCOUNT TO SETTLE

THE ship's boat was bound into the bay, probably to lie there for daybreak, and Jack Cockrell rushed down to the beach where he set up such a frantic hullabaloo that the sailors ceased singing and held their breath and their oars suspended. They had come to look for Bill Saxby and Trimble Rogers, but this was a strange voice. It was so odd a circumstance that several of them hailed the shore with questions loud and perplexed.

"Master John Cockrell, at your service," came back the reply. "Captain Bonnet knows me. I am the lad that clouted a six-foot pirate of yours for being saucy to a maid in Charles Town."

This aroused a roar of laughter and there were gusty shouts of:

"Here's that same Will Brant in the boat with us. He shakes in his boots at the sound of ye."

"What's the game, lad? Have ye taken a ship of your own to scour the Main?"

Jack ignored this good-natured badinage and, in dignified accents, told them to come ashore and take him off to the Royal James. In this company he had a reputation to live up to as a man of parts and valor. They let the boat ground on the smooth sand and one of them lighted a torch of pitch-pine splinters. The fine young gentleman who had strolled arm-in-arm with Stede Bonnet to the tavern green was a ragged scarecrow and bedaubed with red clay and black mud. This aroused their sympathy before he told them of his escape from the Revenge and his adventures with Bill Saxby and the crippled buccaneer. In their turn they explained how Captain Bonnet had sent them down the river to await the return of the two men who were now stranded in the wilderness two days' march distant.

"And why did your captain shift the brig from her anchorage off the island?" asked Jack.

This amused the boat's crew who nudged each other and were evasive until the master's mate who was in charge went far enough to say:

"A sloop came in from the Pamlico River. Our ship sought a snugger harbor, d'ye see? There was some private business. We loaded the sloop with hogshead of sugar, and bolts of damask, and silver ingots. His Excellency, Governor Eden, of the North Carolina Province, turns an honest penny now and then."

"The Governor of this Province is a partner in piracy?" cried Jack.

"Brawl it not so loud, nor spill it to Cap'n Bonnet," cautioned the master's mate. "I confide this much to stave off your foolish questions when ye board the ship."

There was no reason to tarry in the bay and the boat pulled out to follow the course of the river and return in haste to the brig Royal James in her more secluded harbor. The news that Blackbeard was at his old rendezvous within easy sail to the southward eclipsed all other topics. And when it was learned that he had lost the two sloops of his squadron, there was fierce delight. Although the Revenge was a larger vessel and more heavily manned and gunned, they were hilariously confident of victory. It was a burning grudge and a private quarrel, and fuel was added to the flame by the tidings that a score or more of seamen had been mercilessly marooned to perish because of their suspected preference for Captain Stede Bonnet.

When Jack Cockrell caught sight of the shapely brig as she loomed in the morning haze, it seemed as though years had passed since he had enviously watched her pass out over the Charles Town bar. Presently he spied the soldierly captain on the quarter-deck, his spare figure all taut and erect, his chin clean-shaven, his queue powdered, his apparel fresh and in good taste. A ship is like her master and the watch was sluicing down decks or setting up the rigging which had slackened with the heavy dew. Jack felt ashamed to let himself be seen. This was no place for a ragamuffin.

Captain Bonnet strode to the gangway and stared down at this bit of human flotsam. He was quick to recognize his boyish friend and admirer and ordered the men to lower a boatswain's chair and lift Master Cockrell aboard. Jack was, indeed, so stiffened and sore and weary that he had been wondering how he could climb the side of a ship.

"Tut, tut, my son, bide your time," exclaimed Stede Bonnet as they met on deck. "Tell it later. The master's mate will enlighten me."

He led the way into the cabin which was in order and simply furnished. One servant brewed fragrant coffee from Arabia while another made a room ready for the guest and fetched clean clothing from the captain's chests and a tub of hot water. And as soon as the grateful Master Cockrell had made himself presentable, he was invited to sit down at table with the captain and enjoy a meal of porridge and crisp English bacon and fresh eggs from the ship's hen-coop in the long-boat and hot crumpets and marmalade. And this after the pinched ration of mouldy salt-horse and wormy hard-bread! Captain Bonnet lighted a roll of tobacco leaves, which he called a cigarro, and puffed clouds of smoke while Master Cockrell cleaned every dish and lamented that his skin felt too tight to begin all over again.

He was now in a mood to relate his strange yarn, from its outset in the ill-fated merchant trader, Plymouth Adventure. Eagerly he begged information concerning her people after their shipwreck, but Captain Bonnet had been cruising far offshore to intercept a convoy of rich West Indiamen from Jamaica for the old country.

"I will make it my duty to set you ashore at Charles Town, Master Jack," said he, "and I pray you may find your good uncle alive and still vowing to hang all rogues of pirates."

"But I must sail with you, sir, till you have saved Joe Hawkridge and his shipmates and blown Blackbeard out of water."

"Rest easy on that," exclaimed Stede Bonnet. "Those affairs are most urgent. My ship will drop down the river to-day, with the turn o' the tide, and heave to long enough to land a party, six men, to go in search of Trimble Rogers who is the apple of my eye. I shall not ask you to join them, but you can give directions and pen a fair map, I trow."

"Gladly would I go," replied Jack, "but my poor legs wobble like your valiant old buccaneer's. And my feet are raw."

"You have proved yourself," was the fine compliment. "I judged ye aright when we first met."

Soon the deck above them resounded to the tramp of boots and the thump of sheet-blocks as the brisk seamen made ready to cast the ship free. She was in competent hands and so Stede Bonnet lingered below to enjoy talking with the youth whose manners and breeding were like his own. In a mood unusually confidential he confirmed Jack's earlier impressions, that he was a pirate with a certain code of honor which reminded one of Robin Hood of Sherwood Forest who robbed the rich and befriended the poor. Touching on his mortal quarrel with Blackbeard, he revealed how that traitorous ruffian had proposed a partnership while he, Stede Bonnet, was a novice at the trade. The plot all hatched to take Bonnet's fine ship, the Revenge, from him, Blackbeard had disclosed his hand at the final conference when he said, with a sarcastic grimace:

"I see, my good sir, that you are not used to the cares and duties of commanding a vessel, so I will relieve you of 'em."

As soon as Captain Bonnet had mended his fortunes and had the goodly brig Royal James to cruise in, his ruling purpose was to regain the Revenge from Blackbeard and at the same time wreak a proper punishment.

"So now if we can trap this black-hearted Teach before he flits to sea," said Stede Bonnet, "you will see a pretty engagement, Master Cockrell. But first we must find the score o' men that he marooned. It will be a deed of mercy, besides affording me a stronger crew."

The brig was soon standing down the river while the landing party broke out an ample store of provisions and powder and ball, with canvas for a tent. The plan was for them to pitch a camp near the shore of the bay to which they could fetch back Trimble Rogers and Bill Saxby and there wait for their ship to return and take them off. They were ready to go ashore when Captain Bonnet's navigator ordered the main-topsail laid aback and the brig slowly swung into the wind. The delay was brief and no sooner was the boat cast off than the Royal James proceeded on the voyage to Cherokee Inlet.

Clumsy as those sailing ships of two hundred years ago appear to modern eyes, their lines were finely moulded under water and with a favoring wind they could log a fair distance in a day's run. It goes without saying that this tall brig was shoved along for all she was worth before a humming breeze that made her creak, and during the night she was reckoned to be a few miles to seaward of the sandy islands which extended like a barrier outside of Cherokee Inlet. Jack Cockrell stood a watch of his own, dead weary but with no thought of sleep until he could hear the lookout shout "Land ho!"

This cry came from aloft soon after dawn. The brig moved toward the nearest of these exposed shoals while her officers consulted a chart spread upon the cabin roof. They were wary of running the ship aground with Blackbeard no more than a few miles distant. So bare were these yellow patches of sand that showed against the green water that a group of men on any one of them would have been easily discernible. The Royal James coasted along outside of them under shortened sail but discovered nothing to indicate a party of marooned seamen.

"But they must be out here somewhere," cried Jack Cockrell, in great distress.

"They ought to be, for no trading vessel would take 'em off," replied the puzzled Captain Bonnet. "And if they were towed out in boats as ye say, Jack, these islands must ha' been where they were beached."

"But you won't give up the search, sir, without another tack past those outermost shoals?"

"Oh, we shall rake them all, but Blackbeard may have changed that crotchety mind of his and taken the men back to his ship."

"I fear I have seen the last of my dear Joe Hawkridge," exclaimed Jack.

"From what you tell me, the young scamp is not so easily disposed of," smiled Captain Bonnet. "I must haul out to sea ere long. 'Tis poor business to let Blackbeard glimpse my spars and so take warning."

This was sad news and Jack walked away to hide his quivering lip. To examine the islands again was a forlorn hope because already it seemed certain that nothing alive moved on any of them. The brig passed them closer than before as she made a long reach before turning out to sea. It was the intention to sail in to engage Blackbeard very early the next morning and meanwhile he would be vigilantly blockaded.

Even Jack Cockrell, hopeful to the last, was compelled to agree with the crew of the brig that not a solitary man could be seen on these sea-girt cays and it seemed useless to send off a boat to explore them one by one. There would have been some stir or signal, even if men were too weak to stand. The air was clear and from the brig's masts it was possible to sweep every foot of sandy surface. Here was another mystery of the sea. It occurred to Stede Bonnet to ask:

"You took it for granted they were marooned, Jack, when the boats passed from your sight and you were hidden in the tree in the swamp. What if a quicker death were dealt 'em?"

"That may be, sir."

The brig was leaving the coast astern. Jack moped by himself until his curiosity was drawn to a group of seamen upon the forecastle head who were talking loudly and pointing at something in the water, well ahead of the ship. One vowed it was a big sea-turtle asleep, another was willing to wager his silver-mounted pistols that it was a rum barrel, while a third announced that he'd stake his head on its being a mermaid or her husband. The after-deck brought a spy-glass to bear and perceived that the thing was splashing about. The tiller was shifted to bring it close aboard and soon Captain Bonnet exclaimed that it was, indeed, a merman a-cruising with a cask!

Jack Cockrell scampered to the heel of the bowsprit to investigate this ocean prodigy. And as the cask drifted nearer he saw that Joe Hawkridge was clinging to it. There was no mistaking that dauntless grin and the mop of carroty hair. A handy seaman tossed a bight of line over his shoulders as he bobbed past the forefoot of the brig and he was yanked bodily over the bulwark like a strange species of fish. Flopping on deck he waved a skinny arm in greeting and then Jack Cockrell rushed at him, lifted him bodily, and dragged him to the cabin.

"What ho, comrade!" said the dripping merman. "Blast my eyes, but I was sick with worry for you. I left you in that swamp——"

"And I thought you dead, Joe. For the love o' heaven, tell me how you fared and what——"

Captain Bonnet interfered to say:

"I treated you more courteously than this, Jack. Let us make him comfortable."

Accepting the rebuke, Jack bustled his amazing friend into a change of clothes and saw that he was well fed. Little the worse for his watery pilgrimage, Joe Hawkridge explained at his leisure:

"Ned Rackham took the others away in the snow, as I tell ye, Cap'n Bonnet, and there was I in the doleful dumps. Prayers get answered and miracles do happen, for next day there come a-floatin' to the beach a cask full of grub and water. Good Peter Tobey, the carpenter's mate, had a hand in launchin' it, no doubt, but the Lord hisself steered the blessed cask. Well, while I set a-giving thanks and thinkin' one thing an' another, I figgered that when I'd ate all the grub and swigged the water, I was no further along."

"And so you thought you would trust the Lord again," suggested Captain Bonnet.

"Aye, sir, that was it. By watchin' the tides I reckoned I might drift to another island and so work to the coast, taking my provisions with me. There was some small line in the cask that Peter Tobey had wrapped the stores in, and I knotted a harness about the cask that I could slip an arm in, and off I goes when the tide sets right. But some kind of a dratted cross-current ketched me and I'm sailin' out to sea, I finds, without compass or cross-staff. Bound to get to London River, eh, Jack, same as we started out on the silly little raft."

"Whew, this adventure was bad enough," cried Jack, "but when you saw Ned Rackham's pirates in the boat, and you couldn't run away,—I wonder, honest, Joe, you didn't die of fright."

"What for? This is no trade for a nervous wight. And now for a bloody frolic with Blackbeard's bullies."

"There is a share of his treasure for you, Joe, as soon as we can go find it," gleefully announced Master Cockrell. "I have the chart drawn all true with mine own hand. Let me get it."

While the two lads pored entranced over the map of the branching creek and the pine-covered knoll, the crew of the Royal James were overhauling weapons and clearing the ship for action. It disappointed them to lack the twenty men whom they had expected to find marooned but this made them no less eager for battle. Concerning Ned Rackham, there was no feud with him or grudge to square and he could go his way in the little trading snow without fear of molestation from Stede Bonnet.

Under cover of night the Royal James worked back to the sandy islands and anchored in the channel. One of her boats had ventured within sight of the Inlet for a stealthy reconnaissance and reported that the Revenge was still in the harbor. Captain Bonnet was considering his plan of attack. He said nothing about it to Jack Cockrell and his chum, the merman, and they greedily listened to the gossip of the petty officers or thrashed out theories of their own.

To sail boldly into the harbor was a ticklish risk to run as there was no pilot aboard who knew the inner channel and the depths of water. All the gunners were in favor of attempting it because they yearned to settle it with crashing broadsides. But the battered, hairy sea-dogs who had fought it out in hand-to-hand conflicts on the Caribbean were for leaving the brig in safe water and sending fifty men in boats to board the Revenge at the first break of day.

In the midst of the fo'castle argument, Captain Bonnet sent for Jack Cockrell and told him:

"You are to keep out of harm's way, my young gamecock. I have undertaken to deliver you to your esteemed uncle with arms and legs intact, and your head on your shoulders."

"But I am lusty enough to poke about with a pike or serve at a gun tackle," protested the unhappy Master Cockrell.

"I expect you to obey me," was the stern mandate. "You will have company. This Joe Hawkridge is to stay with you."

"But he is a rare hand in a fight, Captain Bonnet. You should have seen him in the Plymouth Adventure."

"The boy is weak and all unstrung, though he carries it bravely, Jack. And Blackbeard's men would take special pains to kill him as a deserter."

By this humane verdict the two lads were shielded from peril, as far as it lay within Stede Bonnet's power. They should have felt grateful to him but on the contrary it made them quite peevish and they sulked by themselves up in the bow of the ship until it was time to eat again. Then their gnawing appetites persuaded them to forgive their considerate host.

The pirates moved about the deck until far into the night while the sparks flew from cutlass blades pressed to the whirling grindstone. Tubs were filled with hand-grenades and fire-pots, the deck strewn with sand, the magazine opened and powder passed up. Stede Bonnet was careful to see for himself that all things were in order. At such times he was a martinet of a soldier.

Anxiously he watched the weather signs, as did every seasoned sailor on board. It bade fair to be a bright morning with an easterly air and this would carry the brig into the harbor with the minimum danger of stranding if the lead were cast often enough. Joe Hawkridge and Jack Cockrell were of some assistance in explaining the marks and bearings of the channel, and Captain Bonnet consulted them over the chart unrolled upon the cabin table. He had made up his mind to sail the brig in and risk the hazards of shoal water. When he went on deck, Jack thought of a topic as thrilling as this imminent duel between ships and he remarked with joyous excitement:

"Now, Joe, as soon as ever Blackbeard gets his drubbing, we beg a boat and men and gear of Captain Bonnet and go up the creek to fish out the treasure chest and dig in the knoll."

"Hook your fish before you fry 'em," replied the sagacious apprentice-boy. "This scrummage with the Revenge will be no dancin' heel-and-toe. A bigger ship, more guns and men, and a Blackbeard who will fight like a demon when he's cornered. Crazy though he may be, he is the most dangerous pirate afloat."



CHAPTER XIII

OUR HEROES SEEK SECLUSION

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 explanation was simple enough. Joe Hawkridge read it at a glance. Blackbeard was not the drunken chuckle-head that Stede Bonnet had assumed him to be. He, too, had taken advantage of the fog to attempt to carry the enemy by stealth. The wit of the one had been matched by the other. And the two flotillas had gone wide enough in passing to escape mutual discovery. In a way it was a pirates' comedy but there were two spectators who foresaw a personal tragedy. They fled for the cabin and scuttled through a small door in a bulkhead which admitted them to the dark hold of the ship.

It was their purpose to hide in the remotest nook that could be found. Falling over odds and ends of cargo they burrowed like rats and stowed themselves behind a tier of mahogany logs which had been taken out of some prize or other. They were in the bottom of the ship, upon the rough floor covering the stone ballast. Then these frightened stowaways found respite to confer in tremulous whispers.

"This is the very dreadfulest fix of all, Joe. I had a fair look at Blackbeard himself, in the stern of the boat,—red ribbons in his whiskers, and his sash stuck full of pistols."

"That old rip isn't an easy man to mistake, Jack. Now the fat is in the fire," replied the Hawkridge lad who, for once, appeared discouraged. "Cap'n Bonnet is a vast sight happier than us. He gets the Revenge without strikin' a blow."

"But Blackbeard gets us," wailed Master Cockrell. "And I helped to chase him through the swamp after we rammed the pirogue into his wherry and capsized the treasure chest. Do you suppose he knew me just now?"

"Those little red eyes of his are passing keen. But didn't ye tell me of smearing your face with mud that day to fend off the mosquitoes? It may ha' disguised you."

"A little comfort in that, Joe, but to be found in Stede Bonnet's brig bodes ill enough. Of a truth we be born to trouble as the sparks fly upward ever since we joined the pirates. What is your advice?"

"To stay hid below and pray God for another shift o' fortune," piously answered Joe. "There is no fear of Blackbeard's rummagin' the hold at present. He must decide if he'll fight the Revenge or give her the slip. And whilst him and his men are busied on deck, I can make bold to search for stores fit to eat. Cap'n Bonnet allus had a well-found ship. Blast it, Jack, my hearty, stock us up and we could lie tucked in the forepeak for a month o' Sundays."

"But the rats and the darkness and the stinks, and to be expecting discovery," was Jack's dreary comment.

"It would ha' looked like a parlor to me when I was on that barren cay and sighted Ned Rackham's rogues coming off from the snow," said the other stowaway. He was beginning to recuperate from the shock.

They were in a mood for no more speech but sat in this rayless cavern of a hold and strove to hear any sounds which might indicate the course of events on deck. There was no hubbub of firearms nor the cries of wounded men. It was foolish to assume that the dozen seamen who had been left to keep the ship would attempt resisting Blackbeard's mob of pirates all primed for slaughter. When quietude seemed to reign all through the ship Joe Hawkridge whispered this opinion:

"If his fancy was to deal with 'em later, he would pitch the lot down here in the hold. Failing that, Jack, he has offered 'em the chance to enlist. Being so few, they can't plot mischief, and he has lost the hands he left aboard the Revenge."

"But I thought all this crew was true as steel to Stede Bonnet, Joe."

"Many a man'll change his mind to save his life," was the reply. "And these lads aren't what you call Cap'n Bonnet's picked men. As for the navigator, Blackbeard needs him to fill Ned Rackham's berth."

Soon Joe Hawkridge told Jack to stay where he was. Now was the time to explore the lower part of the ship. Squeezing his comrade's hand in farewell, Joe crawled aft to make his way to a rough bulkhead which walled off a storeroom built next to the cabin. The boys had passed through it in their headlong flight below. Here was kept the bulk of the ship's provisions. Joe Hawkridge had learned of the storeroom through helping the steward hoist out a barrel of pork.

With his heart in his throat the venturesome lad groped like a blind man, grievously barking his shins and his knuckles, until he bumped into the timbers of the bulkhead. Inching himself along, he came to the small door which had been cut into the hold to connect with the main hatch. He had slipped the iron bar behind him during his flight with Jack Cockrell. Pulling the door ajar he wormed through into the storeroom which was also dark as midnight. His fingers touched what seemed to be a tierce of beef but he had no tools to start the head or the hoops. In the same manner he discovered other casks and barrels but they were utterly useless to him. Here was food enough, he reflected, if a man had teeth to gnaw through oak staves.

Now and again he had to cross to the other door which led into the cabin passageway and press his ear against a plank to make certain against surprise. Up and down the dark room he blundered, refusing to admit himself beaten. The first bit of cheer was when his foot struck a round object as solid as a round shot and he picked up a small Dutch cheese. This renewed his courage and he ransacked the corners on hands and knees. Blackbeard's treasure chest was not half so precious as a side of salted fish which he ran down by scent, saying to himself:

"With this rancid cheese and the slab o' ancient cod, ye could smell my course a league to wind'ard."

In a crumpled sack he found a few pounds of what seemed to be wheat flour, by the feel and taste of it. Poor stuff as it was, dry and uncooked, he added it to his stock.

"Rubbishy vittles," he sighed. "They may keep a man alive but he'll choke to death a-swallowin' of 'em."

Water was the desperate necessity and it was not to be sought for in the storeroom. There was rum enough, the place reeked with it, but to thirsty throats it was so much liquid fire. Joe was resolved not to return to Jack Cockrell without a few pints of water if reckless enterprise could procure it. Was the cabin still empty? He stood for a long time and listened but there was not a sound beyond the door of the passageway. Taking his courage in both hands he pushed at the door and it creaked open on rusty hinges. Light as a feather he moved one foot in front of the other, halted, advanced another step, and so entered the large cabin in which Stede Bonnet had lived with a Spartan simplicity.

What Joe coveted was the porous jar or water-monkey which hung suspended in a netting above the table. It was kept filled, he knew, in order to cool the tepid water from the casks. A heavenly sight it was to him to see the drops sweating on its rounded sides. He snatched it down and was about to make a swift retirement, but still spread upon the table he noted the chart of the Carolina and Virginia coasts which he had pored over with Stede Bonnet. This he delayed to roll up and tuck under one arm, not that he expected to employ it himself, but to make cruising more difficult for Blackbeard.

This bit of strategy held him a moment too long. He shot a glance over his shoulder, alarmed by a tread on the companion ladder. Horrified he beheld a pair of Spanish boots with scarlet, crinkled morocco tops, and they encased bandy legs which were strong and thick. What saved the miserable young Hawkridge was that the occupant of these splendid boots paused half-way down the ladder to shout a profane command or two in those husky accents so feared by all lawful shipmen.

Before that sable beard came into his field of vision the lad was in full stride, running like a whippet, chart under one arm, water-jar under the other. He checked himself to ease the door behind him just as the truculent captor of the Royal James brig reached the foot of the ladder and let his gaze rove about the cabin. Sinking to the floor of the storeroom, Joe was afraid that for once he was about to swoon like a silly maid at sight of a mouse. As he had truly said, this pirating was no trade for a nervous man. Never mind, a miss was as good as a mile. Thankful for the darkness that closed around him, he slung the water-monkey over his shoulder in its hammock of netted cord, pushed the side of codfish inside his shirt, poked the chart into his boot-leg, put the cheese in the sack atop the flour, and was freighted for his journey through the hold.

This he accomplished after great difficulty and had to whistle and wait for a response before he could be sure of Jack Cockrell's whereabouts.

"What luck, Joe?" was the plaintive question. "I'd sooner starve than be left alone in this dungeon."

"Behold the dashing 'prentice-boy with another hairbreadth escape to his credit," replied the hero. "Be thankful for your dinner 'cause Blackbeard all but made a mouthful of me."

"You saw him, Joe?"

"Up to the middle of him, and that was a-plenty. Don't ask me. I had a bad turn."

"I feel sick, too," said Jack. "The smell of this vile bilge-water breeds a nausea, and, whew, 'tis worse than ever."

"Bilge, my eye! You sniff the banquet I fetched ye. Here's a prime cheese that was hatched when Trimble Rogers was a pup."

Jack offered a feeble apology and felt revived after a pull at the water-monkey. What they craved most was a spark of light, the glimmer of a candle to lift this appalling gloom which pressed down like a visible burden. With nothing to do but discuss the situation from every slant and angle of conjecture, it was Joe Hawkridge's theory that Stede Bonnet would not rest content with regaining the Revenge but would come out to attack the brig as soon as the wind favored. His hatred of Blackbeard was one motive but there was a point of honor even more compelling.