"He called you his guest, Jack," explained Joe, "and I never did see a man so jealous of his plighted word when once he swore it. He took obligation to set you safe in Charles Town, d'ye see? And powder smoke won't stop him."

"Will Blackbeard tarry for a fight, Joe?"

"Not to my notion. He knows well this brig is no match for the Revenge, knows it better than did Cap'n Bonnet, what with all the heavy metal slung aboard from the sloop. And what does Blackbeard gain by having this brig hammered into a cocked hat? Fate tricked him comically with this swappin' about of ships."

"And will he linger on this coast? Oh, Joe, if he goes for a long cruise, what in mercy's name becomes of us two?"

"A long cruise, it looks like, shipmate. In the Revenge he could laugh at the small king's men-o'-war commissioned to hunt him down. He was ready to slap alongside any of 'em. Now 'tis different. As another flea in his ear, I stole the only chart of these waters. To the south'ard he'll turn, and I will bet that rampageous cheese on it."

"Clear to the Bay of Honduras?" said Jack.

"As far as that, at a guess. Or he may skirt the Floridas to look for Spanish prizes and put in at the Dry Tortugas which is a famous rendezvous for pirates of the Main. He will be hot to fit himself with a bigger ship, by capture or by some knavish trick such as he dealt Cap'n Bonnet."



CHAPTER XIV

BLACKBEARD APPEARS IN FIRE AND BRIMSTONE

HERE was a tragic predicament from which there was no release. Jack Cockrell was firmly convinced that Blackbeard must have recognized him that day in the swamp while Joe felt no less certain that he was marked for death because he had been one of the party of marooned mutineers. The hope of prolonging their existence by means of raiding the storeroom had ebbed after Joe's investigation. Such provisions as had been broken out of bulk were kept in lockers and pantries on deck where they were convenient to the galley and forecastle. It was realized also that their twittering nerves could not long withstand the darkness and suspense once the brig had put out to sea. Joe Hawkridge had nothing more to say about enduring it a month o' Sundays.

While the brig remained at anchor they clung to the thought that Captain Stede Bonnet might intervene in their behalf. It did bring them a gleam of solace to imagine him hoisting sail on the Revenge and crowding out to rake the brig with his formidable broadsides. And yet they were in doubt whether the Revenge was fit to proceed at once, what with all the work there had been to do, rigging a new foremast, caulking leaky seams, repairing the other ravages of the storm.

These pitiable stowaways had no means of telling one hour from another until, at length, they heard over their heads the faint, musical strokes of the ship's bell on the forecastle head. This led them to believe that the fog had cleared else Blackbeard would not have revealed the vessel's position. And lifting fog meant a breeze to sweep it away from the harbor.

"Eight bells she strikes, the first o' the forenoon watch," said Joe. "We have been cooped in this black pit a matter of three hours a'ready."

"No more than that?" groaned Jack. "It seems at least a week. We must divert ourselves in some wise. What say if I learn you a bit o' Latin? And you can say over such sea songs as come to mind, for me to tuck in my memory."

"Well said, my worthy scholar. 'Tis high time we bowled ahead with my eddication as a proper gentleman."

Jack began to conjugate amo, amas, amat, and the pupil droned it after him but the verb to love recalled a black-eyed lass who had stolen his heart in the Azores and he veered from the Latin lesson to confide that sentimental passage. So Jack hammered nouns of the first declension into him until they grew tired of that, and then the sea waif played his part by reciting such fo'castle ballads as "Neptune's Raging Fury; or The Gallant Seaman's Sufferings," and "Sir Walter Raleigh Sailing in the Lowlands."

This was better than the slow agony of waiting in silence, but Joe spoiled it by turning lovelorn and Jack bemourned fair Dorothy Stuart of Charles Town whom he would never greet again, and they sang very softly together a verse of "The Maid's Lamentation" which went like this:

"There shall be no Scarf go on my Head, No Comb into my Hair, No Fire burn, no Candle light To shew my Beauty fair, For never will I married be Until the Day I die, Since the Seas and the Winds Has parted my Love and me."

This left them really in worse spirits than before, and they drowsed off to sleep, and no wonder, after such a night as they had passed. Accustomed to broken watches, Joe Hawkridge slept uneasily with one ear open. Once or twice he sat up, heard Jack's steady snores, and lay down again. It was the ship's bell which finally brought him to, and he counted the strokes.

"Five bells, but what watch is it?" he muttered anxiously. "How long was I napping? Lost track o' the time, so I have, and can't say if it's night or day."

He sat blinking into the darkness and then had an inspiration. So staunch and well-kept was the brig that the deck seams were tight and no light filtered through. Joe left his hiding-place and groped along to where he thought the main hatch ought to be. Gazing upward he saw a gleam like a silvered line between the coaming and the edge of the canvas cover which was battened with iron bars. This persuaded him that the day had not yet faded, and he concluded that he had heard the bell strike either in the afternoon watch or the second dog watch of early evening.

This he imparted to Jack, after prodding him awake. They mulled it over and agreed that Captain Bonnet must have found the Revenge unready to weigh anchor or he would have engaged the brig ere this. Perhaps there was not breeze enough for either vessel to move. Another hour of this stressful tedium and they heard a sound of sharp significance. It was the lap-lap of water against the vessel's side. No more than the thickness of the planking was between them and this tinkling sea, and Joe exclaimed, in an agitated whisper:

"A breeze o' wind! Gentle it draws, but steady, like it comes off the land at sundown."

"The same as it did when we were blown offshore on the little raft, after we quitted the Plymouth Adventure," replied Jack.

"Blackbeard will take advantage of it to make for the open sea. There be three things offered us, Master Cockrell, to starve or go mad in this blighted hold, to sally on deck and beg mercy, which means a short shift, or to climb out softly in the night and try to swim for it."

"Swim to what, Joe?"

"Swim to the bottom, most likely. But we might fetch one o' them cays or the coast itself if he steers close in to find smooth water. 'Tis the worst odds yet but I'd sooner drown than tarry in this vessel. One miracle was wrought when the cask came driftin' to the beach to save me, and who knows but the Lord can spare another one for the salvation of us poor lads that mean to do right and forsake piratin'."

As they expected, there came soon the familiar racket of making sail and trimming yards and the clank of the capstan pawls. Then the anchor flukes scraped and banged against the bow timbers. The vessel heeled a little and the lapping water changed its tune to a swash-swash as the hull pushed it aside. The brig was alive and in motion.

"She makes no more than two or three knots," observed Joe, after a little while. "Ye can tell by the feel of her. The wind is steady but small."

"Then he can't go clear of the islands till long after night," thankfully returned Jack.

Joe made another trip to crane his neck at the main hatch. The bright thread of daylight had dimmed. He could scarce discern it. The lads occupied themselves with reckoning the distance, the hour, and the vessel's speed. Now that Joe had satisfied himself that the end of the day was near, he knew what the ship's bell meant when it was struck every half-hour. They would await the passing of another hour, until two bells of the first watch, by which time they calculated the brig should be in the wide, outer channel between the seaward islands.

The plan was to emerge through the forepeak in the very bows of the ship where a scuttle was let into the deck. There they might hope to lower themselves to the chain stays under the bowsprit and so drop into the sea. They would be washed past the ship, close to her side, and into the wake, and there was little chance of drawing attention. True it was that in this hard choice they preferred to swim to the bottom if so it had to be.

They crouched where they were hid, waiting to hear the fateful signal of two bells. It struck, mellow, clear, and they were about to creep in the direction of the forepeak. But Joe Hawkridge gripped his comrade's arm and held him fast. A whispered warning and they ceased to move. Behind them, in the after part of the ship, gleamed a lantern. It illumined the open door of the bulkhead which walled off the storeroom. And in this doorway, like a life-sized portrait, grotesque and sinister, set in a frame, was the figure of Blackbeard.

He advanced into the hold and the cowering stowaways assumed that he had come to search them out. The impulse was to dash into the forepeak and so plunge overboard, flinging away all caution, but before their palsied muscles could respond, the behavior of Blackbeard held them irresolute and curious. He had turned his back to them and was shouting boisterously to others to follow him. Seven men came through the doorway, one after the other, hanging back with evident reluctance. It was impossible to discern who they were, whether officers or seamen. Every one carried in his arms what looked to be a tub or an iron pot. These they set upon the dunnage boards which covered the ballast and made a flooring in the hold.

Blackbeard bellowed at them to squat in a circle, which they meekly did. He was in one of his fiendishly mirthful humors, rumpling his beard, strutting to and fro, laughing in senseless outbursts. At such times his men were most fearful for their lives. What sort of an infernal pastime he had now concocted was beyond the imagination of the lads who were concealed a dozen yards away. He was not hunting them, this much was plain, and it seemed wise to be quiet and avoid drawing attention to themselves.

They saw Blackbeard ignite a torch at the lantern and poke it into one pot after another. Flames began to burn, blue and green and yellow, and lurid smoke rolled to the deck-beams overhead. Amid this glare and reek of combustibles, Blackbeard waved his torch and tremendously proclaimed:

"Come, lads, we be all devils together, with a hell of our own,—brimstone fires and pitch. Now, braggarts, see how long ye can bear it. 'Tis a foretaste of what's in store for all hands. At this game I'll outlast ye, for, harkee, I sold my soul to the Old Scratch as is well known."



He stirred his infernal pots and the greasy smoke rolled upward in choking volume. The brimstone fumes were so vile and noxious that the victims of this outlandish revel soon gasped and wheezed. But they dared not object nor move from their places among the villainous pots. Blackbeard enjoyed their sufferings, taunting them as milksops and poltroons who could not endure even this taste of Gehenna. He himself appeared to be unaffected by it, lurching from one man to another, whacking them with the burning torch or playfully upsetting them. In the gaseous pall of smoke he loomed like the Belial whom he was so fond of claiming as his mentor.

Finally one of his involuntary guests toppled over in a faint. Blackbeard was kind enough to haul him to the door and boot him through it. A second man dragged himself thither. A third found voice to supplicate. The witch-fires still smoked and stewed in the pots and Blackbeard had proved that he was the toughest demon of them all.

The two stowaways watched this demented exploit in sheer wonderment. The fumes were not dense in their part of the hold and they could breathe, but they well-nigh strangled in trying to refrain from coughing. The fires of tar and brimstone and what not cast so much light that they dared not betray themselves by crawling toward the forepeak. The upright beams between the keelson and the deck threw black shadows over them and they were in no great peril of detection so long as they stayed motionless.

Joe Hawkridge had heard gossip of this extraordinary amusement as a kind of initiation for hands newly joining Blackbeard's ship. He therefore read it that these unfortunates were some of Stede Bonnet's men who had been captured with the brig. They had been allowed to enlist and were being taught to respect their new master.

Jack Cockrell had hugely admired young Joe for his ready wit and coolness in other crises of their mutual fortunes but now came a moment in which the astute sea urchin surpassed himself. It was not too much to say that he displayed absolute genius with the sturdy Master Cockrell to aid and abet him. Joe clawed in the dark until he found the sack with a few pounds of wheat flour in it. A quick whisper and his comrade grasped the great idea. They took no thought of a sequel. They would trust to opportunity. Hastily they rubbed the flour into their shirts and breeches. They covered their faces with it and lavishly sprinkled their hair. They looked at each other in the shadow of the beams and were pleased with their handiwork.

Another whispered consultation and Joe possessed himself of the cannon-ball of a cheese while Jack grasped the side of salt-fish by the tail. They resembled two whitened clowns of a pantomime but in spirit they were as grimly serious as the menace of death could make them.

Blackbeard was dancing clumsily, like a drunken bear, and deriding with lewd oaths the two or three tortured survivors of his brimstone carnival. In a high, wailing voice which rose to a shriek there was borne to him the words:

"Ye dirked poor Jesse Strawn and left him rotting in the swamp. I was a true and faithful seaman, Cap'n Teach."

A deeper voice boomed out, filling the hold with unearthly echoes:

"I am the shade of the master mariner whom ye did foully murder off Matanzas and there is no rest for me ten fathom down."

The apparitions flitted out of the shadow and were vaguely disclosed in the flickering glare from the brimstone pots. The smoke gave them a wavering aspect as though their shapes were unsubstantial. Blackbeard stood beholding them in a trance of horror. With an aimless finger he traced the sign of the cross and his pallid lips moved in the murmur:

"The ghost o' Jesse Strawn! For the love of God, forbear."

It was a petition as pious as ever Christian uttered. Forgotten was his wicked counterfeit of the nether region. Again the shrill voice wailed:

"Pity poor Jesse Strawn. I'll haunt ye by land and sea, Cap'n Teach. Swear by the Book to let that treasure chest lie at the bottom of the creek else I tear your sinful soul from your body."

The terrible Blackbeard was incapable of motion. Huskily he muttered:

"I'll ne'er seek the chest, good Jesse Strawn, an' it please you to pass me by."

The two spectres moved forward as the one of the deeper voice declaimed:

"Doomed I was to find no rest till I overtook your ship, Ed'ard Teach. Each night you'll see me walk the plank from your quarter-deck."

The unhappy Blackbeard gibbered something and would have fled as the spirits approached him. But those bandy legs tottered and before he could turn the awful visitants were upon him. One raised a round shot above his head, or so it appeared to be, and smote him full upon the crown. The other whirled a flat bludgeon and hit him on the jaw. With the smell of brimstone was mingled the pungent flavor of ripe cheese and salt-fish. Blackbeard measured his length, and the ghost of Jesse Strawn delayed an instant to dump a pot of sizzling combustibles over him.

Then the spirits twain made for the cabin at top speed. Several of the crew had rushed down to harken to the strange disturbance. They scattered wildly at the first glimpse of these phantoms, being superstitious sailormen with many a wicked deed to answer for. It flashed into Joe Hawkridge's mind that all the men of the watch might be chased below, the hatches clapped on them, and the mastery of the brig secured. Blackbeard was absent for reasons best known to himself and his pirates lacked leadership. A brace of ghosts could put them to panic rout. And, no doubt, that wailing message of dead Jesse Strawn had carried like the cry of a banshee.

The poop was deserted in the twinkling of an eye, even to the pair of helmsmen and the officer of the watch. Against the sky of night the unwelcome phantoms were wan and luminous while the groans which issued from them were enough to curdle the blood of the brawniest pirate. He who had been Jack Cockrell in mortal guise was quick to slide the cabin hatch closed and fasten it. For the moment they had captured the armed brig Royal James and as ferocious a crew of rascals as ever scuttled a merchantman.

Joe Hawkridge glided to the taffrail and peered over the stern. A boat was towing behind the ship. It had been left there for taking soundings or pulling the brig's head around while she was still in the shoaler waters near the coast. This was better than Joe had dared anticipate. Feeling his way along the rail, he found the end of the rope which was belayed around a wooden pin. Heaven be praised, they would not have to swim for it! He beckoned his comrade to say in his ear:

"They will soon find their wits. It 'ud be foolish to try scaring 'em under hatches now that the jolly-boat floats so handy. There's hard cases amongst 'em that will begin shooting at us presently. Down the rope ye go, Jack. I'll stand by and give 'em another dose of poor Jesse Strawn."

Over the rail flew the stouter phantom of the two and slid like a white streak, fetching up in the boat with a most earthly and substantial thump. With a farewell wail the other ghost flung a limber leg over and shot down so fast that his hands were scorched. To such pirates as beheld this instant vanishment, these disturbing spirits floated off into space. Jack cut the rope with his knife and the boat dropped back in the shining wake. They shoved out two heavy oars and fairly broke their hearts in pulling dead into the wind where the brig would have to tack to pursue them.

The rattle of the oars and the discovery of the shorn rope's end must have convinced the pirates who ran aft that they had been tricked by mortal beings like themselves. A musket spat a red streak of fire. Blocks whined as the braces were hauled to change the brig's course. In the light breeze she responded awkwardly and soon hung in stays. Meanwhile the jolly-boat was slowly working to windward while two frightened lads tugged and swung until the flour turned to paste on their dripping faces.

Before the brig began to forge ahead, the boat was invisible from her decks. This was evident because the spatter of musket-fire ceased. Soon the fugitives heard Blackbeard's harsh voice damning all hands. That thick skull of his had not been cracked by the impact of the solid cheese and he had been released from his brimstone inferno. The ghosts rested on their oars. They could watch the glimmering canvas of the brig and see what her procedure might be. Soon she filled away and forsook the attempt to find the boat. Blackbeard had wisdom enough to avoid blundering about and putting the brig aground in a chase so elusive as this.

"Farewell, ye hairy son of Tophet," said Joe Hawkridge, waving his hand at the disappearing vessel. "And here's hoping I set your whiskers ablaze when I turned the pot over 'em."

"Did you hear him swear not to touch the treasure chest, Joe? That was a master stroke of yours."

"Aye, it was bright of me. But he thinks different now. He knows we made a booby of him."

"But we learned one thing,—he hasn't recovered the treasure yet," suggested Jack.

"He is such a powerful liar that I don't know as the ghost o' Jesse Strawn could budge the truth out of him. However, it was comfortin' to hear him swear it on his marrow-bones. I fetched away the navigation chart, the one I poached from the cabin table. It gives us the lay o' the coast."

"What ho and whither bound?" was Jack's question. "Here is a sail wound round a sprit beneath the thwarts."

"The wrong wind to head for Cap'n Bonnet and the Revenge. This swag-bellied jolly-boat handles like a firkin. We had best wait for day and then decide the voyage."

"Nothing to eat and no water, Joe. All I can find is an empty pannikin."

"You're a glutton," severely exclaimed young Hawkridge. "After the banquet I served in the hold!"

What Master Cockrell said in reply sounds as familiar and as wistful to-day as when he spoke it two hundred years ago.

"I have had enough of wandering and strange adventures, Joe. I want to go home."



CHAPTER XV

MR. PETER FORBES MOURNS HIS NEPHEW

IT seems a long time, in the course of this story, since the honorable Secretary of the Council, Mr. Peter Arbuthnot Forbes, was forced to sail in to Charles Town from the Plymouth Adventure on that most humiliating errand of finding medicines for Blackbeard's fever-smitten rogues. For the sake of his own dear nephew and the other hostages detained on board, he had endeavored to perform his bargain and was returning across the bar when the threatening clouds and other portents of a violent storm caused the seamen to lose heart. They put about and drove back into the harbor for shelter in the very nick of time.

These were pirates from Blackbeard's crew, it may be recalled, with his grizzled, scarred boatswain at the tiller. They had felt safe enough to swagger and ruffle it through the streets of Charles Town and to terrify the people. Their worthless lives were protected by the hostages who waited in fear and trembling. The town seethed with indignation and was hot with shame. There would be no more of the friendly traffic with pirates.

It was fully believed that the wretched Blackbeard would be as good as his word in allowing no more than two days' grace. Therefore when Mr. Peter Forbes came back in the boat to inform his neighbors that he had been unable to reach the ship, it was sadly taken for granted that those helpless passengers had been put to death. Forthwith the pirates of the boat's crew were seized and thrown in gaol. There they lay in double irons until the Council met and ordered them to be tried. In accordance with the verdict the six seamen and the boatswain were promptly hanged by the neck from the same gallows at White Point hard by the town. And the people no longer shivered at the name of Blackbeard nor feared his vengeance. Their fighting blood was thoroughly aroused.

Not long after this, there arrived from England a new Governor of the Province, a man of honor and resolution who approved what had been done. This Governor Johnson proceeded to organize the town for defense, building batteries on Sullivan's Island, recruiting the seafaring men in the militia, and seeking to obtain merchant vessels which could be employed as armed cruisers. Learning that the Governor of North Carolina was in a corrupt partnership with pirates, he sent messages to Virginia to solicit cooperation.

This activity made much work for Secretary Peter Forbes who forsook his intention of going to England to beg the cooperation of his Majesty's Government against the plague of pirates. Dapper and plump and important as of yore, his florid face was clouded with sorrow and he seemed a much older man. He mourned his nephew, Jack Cockrell, as no more and felt as though he had lost an only son. Every angry word he had ever addressed the lad, every hasty punishment inflicted, hurt him grievously.

It was a solace to talk with winsome Dorothy Stuart because hers was the bright optimism of youth and she held so exalted an opinion of Jack's strength and courage that she refused to abandon hope. And the fact that he had confided to her his rash intention of running away and signing as a pirate sooner than be transported to school in England, persuaded her that he might be alive.

"From what you saw yourself, Mr. Forbes," said she, "when Blackbeard boarded the Plymouth Adventure with his dreadful men, our Jack won his fancy."

"So it appeared, Dorothy. The boy boasted of knocking a tall pirate on the head, and he read this monster of a pirate more shrewdly than I. Yes, Blackbeard took it with rough good humor. But Jack would ne'er consent to sail with him. 'Twas that confounded Stede Bonnet with his gallant air that turned the lad's head. He cast a glamor over this trade of murder and pillage."

"Be that as it may," returned Dorothy, with a sigh and a smile, "I confess to a romantic admiration for this bold Captain Bonnet. He wears an air of mystery which is most becoming. We must not blame poor Jack."

"No, no, I am done with all that," hastily exclaimed Uncle Peter. "All I dare hope is that when Blackbeard is captured, we may learn what fate befell the boy. It makes the torture worse to have him vanish without trace."

"And yet I have faith the sea will give him back to us, Mr. Forbes. He will find you a chastened guardian, not so apt to box his ears."

Uncle Peter was so distressed by this gentle raillery that the girl begged pardon and vowed that she would never again offend. It so happened that they were sitting together in Parson Throckmorton's garden a day or so after this when a friend came running in with tidings the most unexpected and incredible. A negro slave had come from a plantation a few miles inland and he bore a letter written by none other than Captain Jonathan Wellsby of the Plymouth Adventure. It narrated how he and the survivors of his ship had journeyed that far after weeks of suffering and frequent skirmishes with Indians. They were compelled to rest and take shelter before undertaking the last stage of the journey.

Councilor Peter Forbes was magically changed. He shed his dignity and threw his hat in air. Clasping Miss Dorothy's slender waist, he planted a kiss on her damask cheek. Parson Throckmorton was ramming snuff into his nostrils, his wig all awry, while he sneezed trumpet blasts of rejoicing.

"Survivors? Kerchooh! God bless me, that lusty stripling will be amongst them,—kerchooh,—he can survive anything but Greek and Latin,—kerchooh,—I will spare the rod in future."

"I told you so, Uncle Peter Forbes," laughed Dorothy.

"Not so fast," quoth he, in a mood suddenly sobered. "Captain Wellsby includes no list of those in his party."

"But, of course, one of them is sure to be Master Jack," she insisted.

"I am a selfish man and a laggard officer of the Crown," he exclaimed with air of great self-reproach. "There are women in that company and wounded men, no doubt. We must take them clothing, horses, food, a surgeon."

He bustled off to the Governor's house to find that energetic gentleman absent at Sullivan's Island. Acting for him, the Secretary of the Council sent the town crier to summon all good citizens to the tavern green. In the space of an hour the men and supplies were assembled and with Mr. Forbes in command the band of mercy made haste to reach the plantation. During the march there was a buzz of anxious surmise. Was this one and that alive or dead? Had the hostages been slain and were these the sailormen of the Plymouth Adventure who had been set adrift by Blackbeard? Councilor Forbes winced at hearing such talk as this, but his heart beat high nevertheless, so confident was he that he was about to behold his manly nephew.

There was loud cheering when they came to the cleared land of the indigo fields and saw a tattered British ensign fluttering from the log stockade which enclosed the huts of the overseer and his laborers. In the gateway appeared the stalwart figure of Captain Wellsby in ragged garments and with a limping gait. Other men crowded behind him and responded with huzzas which were like a feeble echo. The friends from Charles Town rushed forward to embrace them, loudly demanding to know where the rest were.

"We fetched the women safe through," answered Captain Wellsby whose eyes were sunken and the brown beard streaked with gray. "Twelve good men of my crew are dead, and three of the gentlemen passengers. The swamps took toll of some and the Indians slew the others. We were besieged a fortnight by the Yemassees,—a hard experience all of it, and wondrous luck to have escaped——"

Councilor Forbes delayed while his companions entered the huts to attend the invalids. He struggled to ask a question but his voice was beyond control.

"I understand," kindly spoke the shipmaster. "Your lad is not with us, nor can I say if he be dead or alive."

"The Indians carried him off?" weakly inquired the uncle.

"No, he was never seen after we abandoned ship. Your Jack and a chum of his from Blackbeard's crew were for making the beach on a small raft of their own contrivance. This was after nightfall, Councilor, and what with a land'ard breeze and a crotchety set of the tide amongst the shoals, they floated out to sea."

"On a small raft," muttered Mr. Forbes, "and a vast ocean. I know of no ship voyaging to or from these ports which might have found them."

"I was in hopes of hearing news of the lads from you," sorrowfully said the shipmaster. "There is the chance, tiny though it be, that they were sighted by some vessel bound to foreign parts, across the Western Ocean."

The uncle shook his head in a manner profoundly dejected. There were duties which summoned him and he choked down his own grief, turning from the sympathetic mariner to minister to those in distress. Horse litters were soon ready for the exhausted but heroic women who had been kept alive by the devotion of the noble British seamen in accordance with the traditions of the merchant service. Those unable to walk farther were placed in carts. Clothed and fed, the sailors were in blithe spirits and talked of going to sea again as soon as they could find a ship.

In the crowd which met them on the outskirts of the Charles Town settlement was Dorothy Stuart. She scanned the straggling column and then ran from one cart to another. It was impossible to convince her that Jack Cockrell was not there. But when she heard from Uncle Peter the news that Jack was missing but not surely dead, her faith burned anew, triumphant over fact and reason.

"See how the great storm came to save him from Blackbeard," she cried, her hand nestling in Uncle Peter's arm. "And look how he came unscathed through that bloody battle with the pirates in the Plymouth Adventure. Why, a cruise on a raft is merely a frolic after all that."

"I would not discourage your dear dreams, sweet maid," was the gentle response. "And may they be truer than my own forebodings."

Charles Town was more than ever resentful when it learned from these poor people how the pirate sailing-master, Ned Rackham, had plotted to get rid of them and how mournful had been their sufferings after the shipwreck. The one boat left to them had been too rotten to send along the coast and they had plunged into a wilderness almost impassable.

Meanwhile Governor Johnson, stirred by this episode, had received word that the province of Virginia was both ready and anxious to join in an expedition against Blackbeard. Governor Spottswood of Virginia would be outfitting such craft as he could get together in the James River while he awaited a reinforcement from Charles Town.

The best vessel available for immediate use was a small brigantine, the King George. There was no lack of eager seamen when Councilor Forbes and Colonel Stuart proclaimed the muster on the tavern green. Among those selected were several of Captain Jonathan Wellsby's sailors who were primed to fight even though there was not much flesh on their bones. He himself was a forlorn mariner who had lost his good ship and found no joy in life. With a grim smile of gratitude he accepted the invitation to go as master of the King George, with Colonel Stuart as a sea soldier to drill the men and lead them in action.

It was while they were slinging guns aboard the brigantine that some of the men happened to notice a small boat coming into the harbor under a rag of sail. At first it was taken for a fishing craft and there was no comment until it was quite close. Then they saw that it was a ship's jolly-boat much the worse for wear, with only two occupants. These were half-naked lads, burned black to the waist, with a queer kind of canvas head-gear as a protection against the sun.

The boat was steered to pass under the stern of the King George and the crew was unable to fathom if these were pirates or victims of another shipwreck. Captain Wellsby solved it by shouting:

"Both your guesses are right! One is the pirate younker that served our cause in the Plymouth Adventure and t'other is Master Jack Cockrell!"

One of the Charles Town volunteers heard only the word pirate and growled, with an oath:

"One o' Blackbeard's spawn? We'll make precious short work of him. Hand me a musket and I will save trouble for the hangman."

"Here, stop that," said Captain Wellsby, beckoning his own men. "You old Adventure hands know better. Quell these lubbers. If there's to be hostile feeling ashore I shall take this lad aboard under my own protection."

During this argument the sea-worn pilgrims in the jolly-boat had recognized the shipmaster and were joyfully yelling at him. In response to his gesture, they pulled down the sail and rowed to the gangway of the brigantine. There was no need to fear the wrath of the Charles Town seamen, because the Adventure hands stood by as a guard while they explained how this young Joe Hawkridge had valiantly helped to turn the tide of battle against the prize crew of pirates. And there was such a rousing welcome for Master Cockrell that all else was forgotten. His old shipmates fairly mobbed him.

"I will fire a gun and hoist all the bunting to signal the town," cried the skipper, his face shining. "And presently I'll send you to the wharf in my own boat, but first tell me, boys, who took you off the little raft and whence come you in this ship's boat?"

"Blackbeard rescued us. And we borrowed the boat from him," demurely answered Jack, watching the effect of this bombshell of a sensation.

"Blackbeard!" echoed the bedazed shipmaster and the others chimed it like a chorus.

"Aye, old Buckets o' Blood hisself," grinned Joe Hawkridge. "We had him tamed proper when we parted company. First we chased him through a swamp till his tongue hung out and left him mired to the whiskers. Then for another lark we scared him in his own ship so he begged us on his knees to forbear. We learned Cap'n Ed'ard Teach his manners, eh, Jack?"

This was too much for the audience which stood agape. A dozen voices at once implored enlightenment. With a lordly air for a youth whose costume was mostly one leg of his breeches, Master Cockrell reproved them to wit:

"Captain Stede Bonnet was more courteous to our distress when we sailed with him. He gave us a thumping big breakfast."

"Right-o," declared Joe. "'Tis our custom to spin strange yarns for clothes and vittles in payment."

The men scampered to the galley and pantry but refused to let Captain Wellsby carry these rare entertainers into the cabin. Graciously they sketched the chief events, omitting all mention of the treasure chest, and Jack explained in conclusion:

"And so I was stricken homesick, like an illness, and Joe had his fill of pirates, too. The wind was wrong to rejoin Captain Bonnet in the Inlet harbor after we shipped as ghosts in the jolly-boat, and we had a mariner's chart of the Carolina coast and——"

"But what did you do for subsistence?" broke in Captain Wellsby.

"Food and water?" answered Joe. "Oh, we landed when the thirst plagued us too bad. And there was rain to fill a bight of the sail and a pannikin to save it in."

"And we lived on oysters mostly," said Jack, "and Joe killed a fat opossum with a club, and we caught some fish in a net which I knotted from a ball of marline that was in the boat. And we foraged for pawpaws and persimmons."

"And whenever the breeze was fair we put to sea again," said Joe, "and it was a long and weary voyage, though not so many leagues on the chart."

The captain's boat was ready and they tumbled in, two wayfarers of the sea who were as lean and sun-dried as the buccaneers of old Trimble Rogers' fond memories. Hardships had seasoned and weathered them like good ash staves. On the wharf was Uncle Peter Forbes and Governor Johnson and a concourse of townspeople drawn by the joyous signals flown from the brigantine. Jack looked in vain for Dorothy Stuart and was thankful that her welcome was deferred. Shears and a razor and Christian raiment would make him look less like a savage from the coast of Barbary.

Uncle Peter wasted a vast deal of pity, thinking the castaways too weak and wasted to walk. Jack strode along with him, the crowd at their heels, and soon had the plump Councilor puffing for breath. They insisted on taking Joe Hawkridge with them although he was for seeking lodgings at the tavern. He was one of the household, declared Mr. Forbes, while Jack warned him to beware of impertinence lest he be sentenced to chop wood for the kitchen fire.

The neighbors and friends, as curious as they were joyful, were barred from the house while the lads talked and Uncle Peter carefully made notes of it all. It was too much for him to realize that Jack was sitting there lusty and laughing and with the dutifully respectful manner as of yore, in spite of the man's part he had played to the hilt. Of all the exploits, that which most fascinated Mr. Peter Forbes was the chase after Blackbeard's sea-chest weighty with treasure and the discovery of the knoll in the Cherokee swamp where he might have buried other booty. Here was a picaresque romance which allured the methodical barrister and Councilor and he was as boyishly excited as his nephew. He examined the chart which Jack had copied from his rude sketch made on a piece of bark and this raised a question which he was quick to ask:

"What of Bill Saxby and this old bloodhound of a Trimble Rogers? As soon as Stede Bonnet could get the Revenge to sea, I have no doubt he sailed to Cape Fear River to get these pirate comrades of yours and the seamen he left to find them. Once aboard, they would urge Bonnet to return to Cherokee Inlet and let them go hunt the treasure."

"That may be, but we can trust them to deal fair by us," replied Jack.

"Possibly," was the skeptical comment. Mr. Forbes was not too ready to believe in honest pirates.

"I'm not sure Cap'n Bonnet had a mind to bother with this treasure hunting," suggested Joe Hawkridge. "Leastwise, he may ha' put it off to an easier day. He has friends that keep him well informed, such as the Governor of North Carolina at Bath Town. And all this flurry against piratin', here and in Virginia, 'ud be apt to make Cap'n Bonnet wary of bein' trapped on the coast."

"Joe is full of wisdom, as usual," said Master Cockrell. "And if Blackbeard has cruised to the Spanish Main, as we suspect, the treasure may lie undisturbed for a while."

"Concerning Blackbeard, the evidence then in hand warranted your conclusions," was Uncle Peter's judicial comment, "but I have received later information. The rumor is, and well-founded, that he turned his ship and made for the Pamlico River with the intention of obtaining pardon from the false and greedy Governor Eden. This would baffle our plans against him, or so he would assume. And it would enable him to remain within convenient distance of his treasure."

"Would this Province and Virginia respect such a pardon as that?" queried Jack.

"Not in the case of Blackbeard," snapped the Councilor, "because we know it would be violated as soon as this treacherous villain could safely return to his piracies."

"Then Joe and I will enlist in the King George brigantine," cried Jack. "Captain Wellsby tells me she will sail for Virginia inside the week."

Uncle Peter was about to make violent protest but he checked himself and his emotions were torn betwixt pride and yearning affection. He could not bear to let his nephew go so soon to new perils, but what right had he to try to shield him when the public duty called? It was idle to pretend that Jack was too young and tender to embark on such service as this. He was fitter for it than some of the other volunteers. And so the unhappy Uncle Peter walked the floor with his cheeks puffed out and his hands clasped behind him and said, with a tremulous sigh:

"I swore to treat you no more as a child, Jack. 'Tis right and natural for you to desire to go in the King George as a fighting man tried and true. As for Joe Hawkridge, I have acquainted the Governor with his merits and his pardon is assured."

"Thankee, sir," returned the reformed young pirate. "A respectable life is what I crave, and the parson for company."

"It sounds almost pleasant to me, including the parson," admitted Jack, "as soon as we shall have settled this matter with Blackbeard."



CHAPTER XVI

NED RACKHAM'S PLANS GO MUCH AMISS

THE armed brigantine had been out several days on the voyage to Virginia when a vessel was sighted hull-down. Captain Wellsby and Colonel Stuart decided to edge over and take a look at the stranger although they were not anxious to engage an enemy of heavier metal. If, however, this should happen to be Blackbeard in the Revenge they were in no mood to avoid him, despite the odds. After an hour of sailing in a strong breeze, it was seen that this other vessel was a small merchantman which shifted her course as though to shake off pursuit.

"They take us for a pirate," chuckled Captain Wellsby. "I have no wish to scare 'em, poor souls. They will feel easy as soon as we bring the wind abeam."

He was about to give the order when Joe Hawkridge, gunner's mate, called to Jack Cockrell standing his watch at the helm:

"Remember the snow I told ye of? Yonder is the same rig and tonnage, alike it as peas in a pod."

Jack spoke to the shipmaster who summoned Joe to the quarter-deck. The boy was confident that this was the New England coasting vessel in which Ned Rackham and his pirates had appeared off Cherokee Inlet and had carried the marooned seamen from the sandy cay.

"A brown patch in the big main-topsail, and the bowsprit steeved more'n ordinary," said Joe. "Tit for tat, Cap'n Wellsby. Your men can have the fun of jamming them in the fo'castle. And you won't find me or Jack helpin' these picaroons to break out."

"No fear of that," sternly spoke the shipmaster. "They shall make their exit with a taut rope and a long drop when I deliver them in Virginia."

It was to be gathered that the bold Ned Rackham had failed in his desperate enterprise of capturing a larger ship and that he was probably cruising up the coast in hopes of rejoining Blackbeard. The snow had too few guns to cope with the King George brigantine which could throw a battering broadside. As soon as identification was certain, Captain Wellsby hauled to windward to hold the weather gauge and Colonel Stuart called the men to quarters. The Plymouth Adventure hands were disappointed that they would be unable to pay their own grudge. They had no doubt that Ned Rackham would strike his colors without a battle.

The King George ran close enough for Captain Wellsby to shout through the trumpet:

"The snow ahoy! Send your men aboard or I'll sink you. No tricks, Rackham. Lively, now."

They saw the men running to cut the boat lashings and struggle to launch the boats from the deck. Ned Rackham, handsome and debonair, stared coolly at the brigantine but gave no sign that he had heard the ultimatum. With a shrug he walked across the poop, glanced up at the British ensign which flew from his main truck, and made no motion to pull it down.

"Blow your matches, boys," roared Colonel Stuart from his station in the waist of the King George. "Five minutes' grace, no more."

Captain Wellsby said to wait a little. The pirates were endeavoring to quit the snow. And presently Rackham appeared to change his own purpose. No longer ignoring the King George, he doffed his hat in a graceful flourish and bowed with a mocking obeisance. Then he strolled to the cabin hatch and went below, presumably to get a change of clothing or something of the sort. But he failed to reappear and his men were in a frenzy of haste, with one boat already in the water.

So incensed was Colonel Stuart by the insolent refusal of Ned Rackham to strike his colors in token of surrender that he gave orders to fire at the mainmast and try to bring it down. An instant before the starboard battery thundered, the snow seemed to fly upwards in a tremendous explosion. The masts were flung out of her and the hull opened like a shattered basket. So violent was the shock that men were thrown to the deck of the King George and she quivered as though her bows had rammed a reef. Black smoke spouted as from a crater and debris rained down on a boiling sea.

A few survivors, scorched or half-stunned, were clinging to bits of wreckage and wailing for succor. Where the snow had floated was a discolored eddy, broken timbers, a lather of dirty foam. Captain Jonathan Wellsby picked himself up, rubbed a bump on his head, and gazed wildly at the tragic scene. Collecting his wits, he exclaimed:

"That 'ud be like Ned Rackham, to blow up the ship sooner than be taken and hanged. More than likely he had the train all laid to the powder barrels."

"He saved us a lot of trouble," said Colonel Stuart as he climbed to the poop. "A fellow of iron will and courage, this Rackham, by all accounts. I have conceived a respect for him."

"I forgive him his sins," replied the skipper. "Now, lads, boats away, and fish up those dying wretches."

Joe Hawkridge emitted a jubilant whoop and dived over the rail without waiting for a boat. He had caught a glimpse of a feeble swimmer whose square, solid features and bushy brows were familiar. It was Peter Tobey, the carpenter's mate, who had befriended him on the cay and who had set adrift that miraculous cask of food and water. A few strokes and Joe was at his side, clutching him by the neck-band and towing him toward the King George like a faithful retriever. Ropes were flung to them and Joe saw his good friend safely aboard before he went up the side.

The carpenter's mate was both burned and bruised but his hurts were not grievous and he was able to drag himself aft with Joe as a crutch.

"My own particular prize, sir, by your gracious leave," said Joe Hawkridge, addressing Captain Wellsby. "This is Mr. Peter Tobey, a poor, faint-hearted pirate like me. May I have him to keep, sir?"

"Bless me, but there will be no pirates left to hang," was the quizzical reply. "Master Cockrell has adopted you, and now I am ordered to be kind to Bill Saxby and Trimble Rogers if I meet up with 'em."

"That's the whole list, sir. Ask Jack Cockrell. You can string the rest of the bloody pirates to the yardarm, for all we care. Do I get exemption for this Peter Tobey?"

"What is your verdict, Colonel Stuart?" asked the captain.

"I heard the tale from Hawkridge," answered the brusque but generous soldier. "The carpenter's mate has won my allegiance. What say you in your own behalf, Peter Tobey?"

The blistered, singed survivor touched a hand to his forehead and respectfully responded:

"A carpenter by trade and nature, and allus was. I never see one happy day a-piratin' nor did I shed the blood of any human creatur'. With a bench and tools, you will find me a proper handy man in Charles Town."

"That clinches it," cried Colonel Stuart. "I should call it a crime to hang an artisan like Peter Tobey. Your prize is awarded you, Hawkridge. See that he is well cared for."

"The first booty that ever was handed me from a sinkin' ship," said Joe. "Come along, Master Tobey, and roll into my bunk."

"Verily I was castin' bread upon the waters when I gave that cask to the wind and tide," devoutly murmured the carpenter's mate as he limped below with his new owner.

No more than a dozen other pirates were rescued alive and several of these expired soon after they were lifted aboard the brigantine. This was the only sensational incident of the coastwise voyage to the James River. Comfortably quartered, with no more work than was wholesome, Jack Cockrell and Joe Hawkridge thought it a holiday excursion after their previous adventures at sea.

In the roadstead of the James were two men-of-war, small frigates flying the broad pennant of the Royal Navy. A conference was held in the cabin of the senior officer, to which Captain Wellsby and Colonel Stuart were invited. The latest advices made it seem certain that Blackbeard still lurked off the coast of the Carolinas. Planters had reported seeing his ship in Pamlico Sound and it was also learned that he had been in communication with the disloyal Governor Eden at Bath Town. A letter had been intercepted, in handwriting of the Governor's secretary, and addressed to Captain Teach, which included these words:

"I have sent you four of your men. They are all I can meet with about town. Be upon your guard."

This was readily construed to mean that Blackbeard was in haste to recall such of his crew as had strayed ashore. At the council of war in the frigate's cabin, a proclamation was read. It offered a handsome reward for the capture of Captain Edward Teach, dead or alive, and lesser rewards for other pirates.

It was the decision that the two frigates were unhandy for cruising inshore. Therefore officers and men would be chosen from them to fill the complements of two sloops, light and active craft which would be unhampered by batteries of cannon. They would be employed for boarding Blackbeard's ship while the Charles Town brigantine King George should convoy them and engage in the attack if the depth of water should permit. The naval officer selected to command the sloops was Lieutenant Maynard who went off to the King George to inspect her and make a call of courtesy.

He was especially cordial to Master Cockrell and Gunner's Mate Joe Hawkridge, laying aside the stiff dignity of naval rank. To his persuasive argument that they enter the royal service with promise of quick promotion, they turned a deaf ear although they were wonderfully taken with him. He was a gentle, soft-spoken young man with a boyish smile who blushed when pressed to talk of his own exploits against the Spanish, the Dutch, and the French in Britannia's wooden walls. His own questions were mostly about Blackbeard's fighting quality. Would he make a stand against disciplined tars who were accustomed to close in, hammer-and-tongs? Joe Hawkridge answered to this:

"I ne'er saw him in action against a king's ship, and all his wild nonsense is apt to delude ye into thinkin' him a drunken play-actor. But you will never take him alive, so long as those bandy legs have strength to prop him up."

"I look forward to meeting him with a deal of pleasure. It may be my good fortune to measure swords with him," observed Lieutenant Maynard.

Joe Hawkridge was puzzled by this gentle fire-eater with the complexion of a girl. Nothing could have been more unlike the ramping, roaring pirates of Blackbeard's dirty crew who tried to terrify by their very appearance. After the lieutenant had returned to his frigate, Jack Cockrell remarked:

"A most misleading man, Joe. You cannot picture him seeking the bubble reputation at the cannon's mouth, as Will Shakespeare saith."

"Blackbeard will bite him in two," replied Joe. "He is too pretty to be risked in such a slaughter pen. I own up to feelin' squeamish on my own account, hardy pirate though I be."

"This Lieutenant Maynard is welcome to measure swords with Blackbeard," said Jack, "and I shall not quarrel with him for the honor. Pick me a pirate with a wooden leg, Joe, or one that still shakes with Spanish fever."

"My only chance of getting out with a whole skin is to lug a sack of flour under one arm and play the ghost o' Jesse Strawn."

Expeditiously the brigantine and the two sloops sailed out of the James River to head for the North Carolina coast and first rake the nooks and bays of Pamlico Sound. There was no intention of offering Blackbeard fair odds in battle. With men and vessels enough it was resolved to exterminate him, like ridding a house of rats or other vermin. If he had gone out to sea, then the pursuers would wait and watch for his return to his favorite haunts in these waters. There was every reason to believe, however, that he was concealed inshore, within easy distance of his friend Governor Eden.

Failing to find him in Pamlico Sound, it was debated whether to cruise farther to the southward. Now Master Jack Cockrell and his chum had said nothing to the officers concerning the treasure in the Cherokee swamp. They felt bound in honor not to reveal it without the consent of Bill Saxby and old Trimble Rogers who were partners in the enterprise. Moreover, Lieutenant Maynard and the Virginia officers would feel bound to turn the treasure over to the crown or its representatives. Governor Eden of North Carolina would undoubtedly claim it as found within his territory and this meant that he would steal most of it for himself.

It thrilled the lads when Colonel Stuart told them that this Provincial squadron would cruise as far as Cherokee Inlet before working to the northward again. Information had led the officers to believe that Blackbeard had lost many men by desertion while his ship lay at Bath Town and near by. They had been roving about the plantations and making a nuisance of themselves and seemed ready to quit their red-handed despot of a master. In this event he might have sought his old hiding-place at the Inlet sooner than risk a clash with the force which had been sent after him and of which he had been warned by Governor Eden.

Lieutenant Maynard scouted in advance with the two sloops because there was small danger of their getting aground and they could be moved along with oars if the wind failed. The brigantine kept further offshore but within signaling distance. She was running within sight of the scattering barrier of low islands when Captain Wellsby summoned Joe Hawkridge and informed him:

"You will act as pilot, Joe, once we fetch sounding on the Twelve Fathom Bank. The chart is faulty, as ye know, and me and my mates are in strange waters with a'mighty little elbow-room. You know the marks, I take it."

"Aye, sir, I do that," answered Joe. "Then I stays aboard ship and miss the chance to go pokin' about with a cutlass? I'm all screwed up to terrible deeds, Cap'n Wellsby, after a spell o' mortal fear. And who takes care of Master Cockrell if he goes in a boat?"

"His own lusty right arm, Joe. Avast with your melancholy. We must first catch this Blackbeard."

Presently Joe Hawkridge footed it up the main shrouds to scan the sea ahead and try to get a glimpse of that sandy bit of exposed shoal on which he had been marooned. This would enable him to find the entrance to the outer channel and so con the brigantine in from seaward. While he shaded his eyes with his hand against the glare of the morning sun, one of the sloops hoisted a string of bright signal flags and fired two guns. The other sloop was seen to lower her topsail and wait for the King George to come up.

Joe Hawkridge climbed higher and found a perch where he could discern the spars of a vessel etched almost as fine as threads against the azure horizon. He was almost certain that the ship he saw was very close to that tiny cay of which he had such unhappy knowledge. Soon he was able to perceive that the vessel's sails were furled. This was an odd place for an anchorage. His conjecture was confirmed when the King George passed close to the nearest sloop and Lieutenant Maynard shouted:

"Stranded hard and fast! And she is deucedly like Blackbeard's brig."

Scampering to the deck, Joe Hawkridge mustered his gun's crew as Jack Cockrell came running up to say:

"Trapped on the very islet where he cast you and the other pirates! His chickens have come home to roost."

"Call me no pirate or I'll stretch ye with a handspike," grinned Joe. "'Tis a plaguey poor word in this company. Aye, Cap'n Ed'ard Teach has a taste of his own medicine and he will get a worse dose this day than ever he served me."



CHAPTER XVII

THE GREAT FIGHT OF CAPTAIN TEACH

YES, there was Blackbeard's ship hard in the sand which had gripped her keel while she was steering to enter the Cherokee Inlet. There was no pearly vapor of swamp mist out here to shroud her from attack. The air was clear and bright, with a robust breeze which stirred a flashing surf on the shoals. Under lower sails, the two sloops watchfully crept nearer until their crews could examine the stranded brig and read the story of her plight. She stood on a slant with the decks sloped toward the enemy. This made it impossible to use her guns with any great effect.

Captain Wellsby tacked ship and kept the King George well away from the cay, as Joe Hawkridge advised. With an ebbing tide, it was unsafe to venture into shallower water in order to pound Blackbeard's vessel with broadsides. Lieutenant Maynard came aboard in a small boat and was quite the dandy with his brocaded coat and ruffles and velvet small-clothes. One might have thought he had engaged to dance the minuet. Colonel Stuart met him in a spick-and-span uniform of His Majesty's Foot, cross-belts pipe-clayed white as snow, boots polished until they shone. Such gentlemen were punctilious in war two hundred years ago.

"Your solid shot will not pound him much at this range, my good sir," said the lieutenant. "With his hull so badly listed toward us, you can no more than splinter the decks while his men take shelter below."

"I grant you that," regretfully replied the soldier. "And case-shot will not scatter to do him much harm. Shall I blaze away and demoralize the rascals whilst you make ready your boats?"

"Toss a few rounds into the varlets, Colonel Stuart. It may keep them from massing on deck. One boat from your ship, if it please you, with twenty picked men. I shall take twenty men from each sloop as boarders."

"Sixty in all?" queried the colonel. "Why not take a hundred?"

"They would be tumbling over one another,—too much confusion. This is not a large vessel yonder. We must have room on deck to swing and cut."

"I will have my men away in ten minutes, Lieutenant Maynard," crisply replied the blonde, raw-boned Scotsman with a finger at his hat-brim in courteous salute. He proceeded to call the men by name, strapping, sober fellows who had followed the sea amid the frequent perils of the merchant service. Jack Cockrell was the only landsman and he felt greatly honored that he should be included. Gone was his unmanly trepidation. Was he more worthy to live than these humble seamen who fought to make the ocean safer for other voyagers, who were true kinsmen of the Elizabethan heroes of blue water? He tarried a moment to wring Joe Hawkridge's hand in farewell and to tell him:

"If I have ill luck in this adventure, old comrade,—do you mind presenting my best compliments, and—and a fond farewell to Mistress Dorothy Stuart?"

"Strike me, Jack, stow that or you'll have me blubberin'," said Joe. "Bring me a lock of Cap'n Teach's whiskers as a token for my lass in Fayal if ever I clap eyes on her again. And you'd best take this heavy cutlass which I whetted a-purpose for ye. 'Twill split a pirate like slicin' an apple."

With this useful gift in his hand, Master Cockrell swung himself into the boat where Colonel Stuart stood in the stern-sheets. Perhaps he, too, was dwelling on a fair maid named Dorothy who might be left fatherless before the sun climbed an hour higher. The sloops were moving nearer the cay under sail and oar, trailing their crowded boats behind them. Blackbeard had hauled two or three of his guns into such positions that he could open fire but the sloops crawled doggedly into the shoal water and so screened their boats until these were ready to cast off for the final dash.

It was a rare sea picture, the stranded brig with canvas loose on the yards and ropes streaming, her listed decks a-swarm with pirates in outlandish, vari-colored garb, the surf playing about her in a bright dazzle and the gulls screaming overhead. The broad, squat figure of Blackbeard himself was never more conspicuous. He no longer strutted the quarter-deck but was all over the ship, menacing his men with his pistols, shifting them in groups for defense, shouldering bags of munitions, or heaping up the grenades and stink-pots to be lighted and thrown into the attacking boats.

It was his humor to adorn himself more elaborately than usual. Under his broad hat with the great feather in it he had stuck lengths of tow matches which were all sputtering and burning so that he ran to and fro in a cloud of sparks and smoke like that Evil One whom he professed to admire. He realized, no doubt, that this was likely to be his last stand. The inferno which he was so fond of counterfeiting, fairly yawned at his feet.

And now the sloops let go their anchors while from astern of them appeared the three boats of the assailants. They steered wide of each other to seek different parts of the pirate brig and so divide Blackbeard's force. The boats of Colonel Stuart and Lieutenant Maynard were racing for the honor of first place alongside. Blackbeard trained two guns on them, filled with grape and chain-shot, and one boat was shattered but it swam long enough for the cheering men to pull it to the brig and toss their grapples to the rail which was inclined quite close to the water. They were in the surf which broke against the ship, but this was a mere trifle.

Most of them went up the side like cats, leaping for the chains and dead-eyes, slashing at the nettings, swinging by a rope's end, or digging their toes in a crack of a gun-port. Forward they were pouring over the bowsprit, vaulting like acrobats from the anchor stocks, or swarming up the stays. It seemed beyond belief that they could gain footing on the decks with Blackbeard's demons stabbing and hacking and shooting at them, but in such manner as this was many a great sea fight won in the brave days of old.

Lieutenant Maynard gained his lodgment in the bows amid a swirl of pirates who tried to pen him in front of the forecastle house. But his tars of the Royal Navy were accustomed to close quarters and they straightway made room for themselves. Chest to chest and hand to hand they hewed their way toward the waist of the ship where Colonel Stuart raged like the braw, bonny Highlander that he was. Almost at the same time, the third boat had made fast under the jutting stern gallery and its twenty men were piling in through the cabin windows like so many human projectiles.

In the King George brigantine, Captain Jonathan Wellsby fidgeted and gnawed his lip, with a telescope at his eye, while he watched the conflict in which he could scarce distinguish friend from foe. He could see Blackbeard charge aft to rally his men and then whirl back to lunge into the melee where towered Colonel Stuart's tall figure. The powder smoke from pistols and muskets drifted in a thin blue haze. Joe Hawkridge was fairly shaking with nervousness as he said to the skipper:

"There'll be no clearing the decks 'less they down that monster of a Cap'n Teach. And he has more lives than a cat. See you my dear crony, Master Jack?"

"No, I cannot make him out in that mad turmoil," replied Captain Wellsby. "Nip and tuck, I call it, Joe."

This was the opinion forced upon Lieutenant Maynard as he saw the engagement resolve itself into a series of bloody whirlpools, his seamen and the pirates intermingled. He won his way past the forecastle into the wider spaces of the deck, with only a few of his twenty tars on their feet. Colonel Stuart was hard pressed and the boarders who had come over the stern had as much as they could do to hold their own. Thus far the issue was indecisive.

Jack Cockrell had kept close to the colonel, and felt amazement that he was still alive. His cheek was laid open, a bullet had torn his thigh, and a powder burn streaked his neck, but he felt these hurts not at all. It was a nightmare from which there seemed no escape. He saw Blackbeard rush at him with a raucous shout of:

"The scurvy young cockerel! He will ne'er crow again."

Colonel Stuart sprang between them, blades clashed, and they were swept apart in another wave of jostling combat. A moment later the colonel slipped and fell as a coal-black negro chopped at him with a broken cutlass. Jack Cockrell flew at him and they wrestled until a hip-lock threw the negro to the deck, where the colonel made him one pirate less.

Formidable as these outlaws were, they lacked the stern cohesion which had been drilled into the sailors of the Royal Navy and likewise learned in the hard school of the merchant service. Very slowly the odds were shifting against Blackbeard's crew. It was unmistakable when Lieutenant Maynard cut his way through to join Colonel Stuart, while the third group of boarders was advancing little by little from the after quarter. This meant that the force was gradually uniting in spite of the furious efforts to scatter it.

And now there came an episode which lives in history two centuries after that scene of carnage on the decks of the stranded brig. It has preserved the name of a humble lieutenant of the Royal Navy and saved it from the oblivion which is the common lot of most brave men who do and dare when duty beckons.

Blackbeard was bleeding from a dozen wounds and yet his activity was unabated. He was like a grizzly bear at bay. His men began to believe that his league with Satan, of which he obscenely boasted, had made him invulnerable. He was all that he had proclaimed himself to be, the wickedest and most fearsome pirate of the Western Ocean. And all the while, the slender, boyish Lieutenant Maynard, sailor and gentleman, had one aim in mind, and that was to slay Captain Edward Teach with his own hand. Nor was he at all content until he had cleared a path to where the hairy pirate was playing havoc with his broadsword.

With a loud laugh in mockery, Blackbeard snatched a loaded pistol from one of his men and fired at this foppish young officer who presumed to single him out. The ball chipped Maynard's ear and he dodged the pistol which was hurled at his head. It was curious to note a lull in the general engagement, a little interval of suspense while men regained their breath or tried to staunch their wounds. They were unconsciously awaiting the verdict of this duel between their leaders. Jack Cockrell, for instance, finding himself alone by some chance, leaned against a stanchion and heard his own blood drip—drip—on the deck.

It was a fleeting respite. Blackbeard swung his sword, with the might of those wide shoulders behind it. The lieutenant stepped aside like lightning and the bright weapon whistled past his arm. Then they went at each other like blacksmiths, sparks flying as steel bit steel. Dexterity and a cool wit were a match for the pirate's untamable strength. Gory, snarling, Blackbeard shortened his stroke to use the point. The lieutenant dropped to one knee, thrust upward, and found a vital spot.

Blackbeard stood staring at him with wonder in his eyes. Then those thick, bowed legs gave way and he toppled like a tree uprooted. He passed out quietly enough, with no more cursing, and in this last moment of sensibility his thoughts appeared to wander far to his youth as a brisk merchant seaman out of Bristol port, for he was heard to mutter, with a long sigh:

"A pretty babe as ever was, Mollie, and the mortal image of its mother."

To his waist the sable beard covered him like a pall and one corded arm was flung across his breast and it showed the design of the skull and cross-bones pricked in India ink. Then as if the dead leader had issued the command, the surviving pirates began to fling down their weapons and loudly cry for quarter. They need not have felt ashamed of the resistance they had made up to this time, but now the delirium of combat had slackened and Blackbeard was no more. One or two of his officers were alive and they knew that the game was lost. Reinforcements could be sent from the sloops and the brigantine as soon as they were signaled for. And there was no flight from a stranded ship. Blackbeard had been able to infuse them with his own madness. Better chance the gallows than no quarter.

Here and there a few of the most desperate dogs of the Spanish Main who had followed Blackbeard's fortunes a long time, refused to surrender but they were either shot down or overpowered. Captain Wellsby was sending off two boats from the King George with his surgeon, and the sloops were kedging in closer to the cay with the rising tide. Half the seamen were beyond aid and of the pirates no more than twenty were alive. Jack Cockrell was thankful to have come off so lightly, and he consoled himself with the notion that a scar across his cheek would be a manly memento. Colonel Stuart had been several times wounded but 'tis hard killing a Highlander.

It was Lieutenant Maynard's duty to offer public proof that he had slain none other than the infamous Blackbeard, wherefore he made no protest when his armorer hacked off the head of the dead pirate. There was no feeling of chivalry due a fallen foe, valiant though his end had been. This horrid trophy was tied at the end of a sloop's bowsprit, to be displayed for the gratification of all honest sailormen who might behold it in port. It was not a gentle age on blue water and Captain Edward Teach had been the death of many helpless people during his wicked career.

Lieutenant Maynard announced that he would take the two sloops into Bath Town, before proceeding to Virginia, as they were overcrowded vessels and the survivors of the boarding party needed proper care ashore. It would also afford the unscrupulous Governor Eden of North Carolina an opportunity to see his friend, Captain Teach, as a pirate who would divide no more plundered merchandise with him.

The brigantine King George was ready to escort them into Pamlico Sound, after which she would sail for Charles Town. Before the departure from the entrance of Cherokee Inlet, the stranded vessel was set afire and blazed grandly as the funeral pyre of Blackbeard's stout lads who would go no more a-roving.

Never was a nurse more devoted than Joe Hawkridge when his comrade was mercifully restored to him. Jack was woefully pale and weak but in blithe spirits and thankful to have seen the last of Blackbeard.

"Hulled in the leg and a damaged figger-head," said Joe, as he sat on the edge of the hero's bunk. "Triflin', I call it, when I expected to see you come aboard feet first wrapped in a bit o' canvas."

"I don't want to talk about it, Joe. Let's find something pleasant. Ho for Charles Town, and the green trees and a bench in the shade."

"And a tidy little vessel after a while, you and me and the Councilor a-pleasurin' up the coast with men and gear to fish up the treasure chest."

"And you believe that Blackbeard never got back to the Inlet to save the treasure for himself?" asked Jack.

"Not the way his ship was headed when she struck the shoal."

The brigantine was well on her way to Charles Town when Captain Wellsby found that Master Cockrell could be carried into the comfortable main cabin to rest on a cushioned settle for an hour or two at a time. It was during one of these visits, when Joe Hawkridge was present, that the skipper remembered to say:

"Here is a bit of memorandum which may entertain you lads. Lieutenant Maynard had Blackbeard's quarters searched before the brig was burned. Some valuable stuff was found, but nothing what you'd call a pirate's treasure."

The lads looked at each other but kept their own counsel and Captain Wellsby went on to explain:

"There was a private log, Blackbeard's own journal, with a few entries in it, and most of the leaves torn out. I made a copy of what could be read, for the late Captain Teach was a better pirate than scrivener. Here, Jack, you are the scholar."

Jack read aloud this extract, which was about what might have been expected:

"Such a day! Rum all out,—our company somewhat sober. A confusion amongst us,—rogues a-plotting—great talk of separation. So I looked sharp for a prize. Took one, with a great deal of liquor on board, so kept the company hot, very hot. Then all things went well again."

"That sounds familiar enough to me," was Joe Hawkridge's comment. "And the rest of his writing will be much like it."

"Not so fast," exclaimed Captain Wellsby. "Scan the next page, Jack. 'Twill fetch you up all standing. Not that it puts gold in our pockets, for we know not where to search, but I swear it will make your eyes sparkle and your mouth water."

Trying to hide his excitement, Jack saw a kind of rough inventory, and it ran like this:

"Where I Hid Itt This Cruse:

1 Bag 54 Silver Barrs. 1 Bag 79 Barrs & Peaces of Silver.

1 Bag Coyned Gold. 1 Bag Dust Gold. 2 Bags Gold Barrs.

1 Bag Silver Rings & Sundry Precious Stones. 3 Bags Unpolyshed Stones.

1 Silver Box set with Diamonds. 4 Golden Lockets.

Also 1 Silver Porringer—2 Gold Boxons—7 Green Stones—Rubies Great & Small 67—P'cl Peaces of Eight & Dollars—Also 1 Bag Lump Silver—a Small Chaine—a corral Necklace—1 Bag English Crowns."

Captain Jonathan Wellsby listened to this luscious recital with an air of mild amusement. He was of a temper too stolid and sensible to waste his time on random treasure hunting. Blackbeard might have chosen his hiding-place anywhere along hundreds of leagues of coast. He could understand the agitation of these two adventurous lads to whom this memorandum was like a magic spell. Of such was the spirit of youth.

"Any more of it?" demanded Joe Hawkridge.

"The next page was ripped out of the journal," answered the skipper. "What cruise did he mean? If it was this last one, he may have hid it on the Virginia or Carolina coast."

Master Cockrell gave it as an excuse that he had sat up long enough and would return to his bunk. He was fairly bursting for a conference with Joe, and as soon as they were alone he exclaimed:

"It may be the sea-chest! What do you think?"

"A handsome clue, I call it, something to warm the cockles of your heart," grinned the sea urchin. "Aye, Jack, I should wager he wrote that down whilst he lay at anchor in Cherokee Inlet."

"It seems shabby of us to keep the secret from Captain Wellsby, but there is an obligation on us——"

"To Bill Saxby and the old sea wolf," said Joe. "We'll not forget this trump of a skipper when it comes to splittin' up the treasure."

"I am anxious for Captain Bonnet and his crew," remarked Jack. "With this crusade against pirates afoot, our friends may be hanged before we see them again."



CHAPTER XVIII

THE OLD BUCCANEER IS LOYAL

SORROW mingled with rejoicing when the King George brigantine sailed into Charles Town harbor. The sea fight off Cherokee Inlet had taken a heavy toll of brave seamen and there were vacant chairs and aching hearts ashore, but the fiendish Blackbeard had been blotted out and would no more harry the coast. Small and rude as was this pioneer settlement, it was most fair and attractive to the eyes of young Master Cockrell and Joe Hawkridge. In the house of Uncle Peter Forbes they rested at their ease and planned sedate careers for themselves.

Even the treasure ceased to be uppermost in their lively discussions. It could wait a while. They were no longer under the spell of its influence. This different world in which they now dwelt so contentedly made their adventures seem like shadowy figments with precious little romance in them. And neither lad expressed any great anxiety to go exploring the noisome Cherokee swamp and to challenge the ghost of Blackbeard.

Without a sign of rebellion, Jack returned to his books and lessons in Parson Throckmorton's garden. The learning already acquired he began to pass on to Joe Hawkridge, who was a zealous pupil and determined to read and write and cipher without letting the grass grow under his feet. It was this young pirate's ambition to make a shipping merchant of himself, and Councilor Forbes found him employment in a warehouse where the planters traded their rice, resin, and indigo for the varied merchandise brought out from England. Jack aspired to manage his uncle's plantation and to acquire lands of his own and some day to sit in the Governor's Council.

Of a Sunday morning he went to the little English church, dressed in his best and using a cane, for he limped from the wound in his thigh. Joe Hawkridge walked with him, careful to banish his grin, and sat in the Councilor's pew where he paid proper attention to the prayers and responses. This caused some gossip but the ocean waif was winning his way to favor by dint of industry, a shrewd wit, and his perennial good humor.

Frequently they escorted fair Dorothy Stuart home from church. She was fonder than ever of stalwart Master Cockrell because the colonel had told her he would have been a dead man had not the lad intervened to save him from the stroke of a negro pirate. Alas, however, it was not that sentimental devotion for which the lovelorn Jack yearned, and he confided to Joe that his existence was blighted. This evoked no sympathy from the fickle Hawkridge, who was forgetting his black-eyed lass in the Azores and was already a slave to Dorothy Stuart. She laughed at them both and was their true friend, tender, and whimsical and anxious for their welfare. It was a valuable chapter in their education.

One morning while Joe was at work in the warehouse near the harbor, he heard a commotion in the street and was about to run out when his employer came in and explained:

"Two pirates captured,—just as I happened to pass. The knaves landed from a boat in broad daylight, unaware that Charles Town has mended its loose habit toward such gentry."

"What will be done with 'em?" quickly asked Joe, with an unhappy premonition.

"They were recognized as two of Stede Bonnet's old hands that used to resort to the tavern. Soldiers of the Governor's guard have been sent for to drag them to the gaol."

Joe hastened out but slackened his pace to lag behind the crowd of idlers who were jostling the prisoners along with hoots and jeers. Yes, there was the tall, gaunt frame and gray head of old Trimble Rogers whose mien was so forbidding and masterful that the mob forbore to handle him too roughly, unarmed though he was. At his elbow trudged chubby Bill Saxby, gazing about him with those wide blue eyes in which was not a trace of guile. Joe realized that for him to intercede would make matters worse. He was a reformed pirate on probation and was known to have sailed with Blackbeard himself.

Therefore he darted into another street and sped to find Jack Cockrell, who chanced to be at home. They rushed into the room where Uncle Peter Forbes was writing at his desk and informed him that their two staunch comrades had come ashore to find them and were already in custody and something must be done to save them from the wrath of Governor Johnson, who had a mortal distaste for pirates still at large. The Councilor calmed the perturbation by assuring them:

"I have already spoken to His Excellency in behalf of these two men should they appear in this port. He was not wholly pleased but promised clemency should they offer to repent and if I gave surety for the pledge."

"They will be ready to live as respectable as Joe," impetuously declared Master Cockrell. "I'll go bail on it. Bill Saxby is a tradesman by nature and if you will lend him enough money to set himself up as a linen-draper and haberdasher, Uncle Peter, he can live happily ever after."

"And old Trimble Rogers has sailed his last cruise under the Jolly Roger, Councilor," put in Joe Hawkridge. "His timbers are full o' dry rot and he seeks a safe mooring."

"There seems no end to the bad company you drag me into," quoth Uncle Peter. "My hat and broadcloth cloak, Jack, and let us fare to the gaol and see what these awkward visitors have to say. After that I will attend upon the Governor."

In better spirits the anxious lads followed the dignified Secretary of the Council to the strongly built gaol on the edge of the town. In a very gloomy cell behind iron bars they found the luckless brace of pirates, shackled hand and foot. Bill Saxby took it like a placid philosopher but the ancient buccaneer was spitting Spanish oaths and condemning the hospitality of Charles Town in violent terms. He quieted instantly at sight of his young friends and the harsh, wrinkled visage fairly beamed as he shouted:

"Our camaradas, Bill. Here they be, to haul us out of this filthy hole! I forgive the unmannerly folks that allus used to welcome us."

They shook hands through the bars while Uncle Peter stood aside. He felt that his official station forbade his joining this fraternal reunion. In the narrow corridor he chatted with the gaoler to pass the time while Bill Saxby was explaining to the lads:

"We was in duty bound, in a manner of speakin', to run you down as soon as possible and make a report. Eh, Trimble?"

"Aye, Bill, to see what was to be done about the treasure. We wouldn't have 'em think we had run off with it. D'ye see, Master Cockrell, me and Bill took Cap'n Bonnet into our confidence. He is an honorable man and to be mentioned along with the great Cap'n Ed'ard Davis what I was shipmates with in the South Sea and at the sack of——"

"Stow it, grandsire," cried Bill. "I don't want to linger in gaol while you spin that long-winded yarn. Tell the lads what they want to know."

"If I weren't chained to the wall, Bill, I'd put my fist in your eye," severely retorted the veteran. "As I was a-sayin', Cap'n Bonnet was all courtesy and allowed the treasure belonged to us and he was ready to help find it."

"We told him we had to join up with our gentleman partner, Master Cockrell, and win his consent," said Bill, "afore we put our hooks on that blessed sea-chest."

"Which is exactly how I felt about you," Jack told them and he was greatly touched by this proof of their unbending fidelity. "But how did you manage it to reach Charles Town?"

"Cap'n Bonnet hove to outside the bar last night," explained Trimble Rogers, "and gave us a handy boat to sail in with."

The wary Joe Hawkridge took alarm at this and put a finger to his lips. It was unwise to parade the fact that Stede Bonnet cruised so near. His Excellency, the Governor, was anxious that he should share the fate of Blackbeard. Jack Cockrell had no fear that his Uncle Peter would be a tale-bearer. His private honor would forbid because this interview with the two lads was a privileged communication. What made Jack a trifle anxious was the presence of the gaol keeper in the corridor. He was a sneaking sort of man, soft of tread and oily of speech and inclined to curry favor with those in authority.

Councilor Peter Forbes had tactfully withdrawn this person beyond earshot but he began to edge toward the cell. Old Trimble Rogers tried to heed Joe's cautionary signal but what he meant to be a whisper was a hoarse rumble as he explained:

"Cap'n Bonnet sends word he will be off this coast again in thirty days. He will come ashore hisself, to Sullivan's Island to get the answer, whether you are to go with us, Master Cockrell, to Cherokee Inlet."

Jack glanced at the gaol keeper but he was a dozen feet away and deep in talk with Mr. Forbes. There was no sign that this confidence had been overheard. Bill Saxby scolded the buccaneer for his careless speech but the old man had been a freebooter too long to be easily tamed. With artful design, Jack led him away from this dangerous ground and suggested:

"You are done with pirating? And will you both be ready to stay ashore in Charles Town after this,—this certain errand is accomplished?"

"I swear it gladly and on my own Bible," answered Trimble Rogers.

"Swear it for me," said Bill Saxby.

Mr. Forbes interrupted and told the lads to go home and await his conference with Governor Johnson. It proved to be a session somewhat stormy but the upshot was a pardon conditioned on good behavior. The convincing argument was that these men had been faithful to Master Cockrell through thick and thin and had saved him from perishing in the Cherokee swamp. Moreover, it might be an inducement to others of Stede Bonnet's crew to surrender themselves and forsake their evil ways.

No sooner were these two pirates released from gaol than they found an active friend in Mr. Peter Forbes. He went about it quietly, for obvious reasons, but he felt under great obligation to them for their goodness to his nephew. Just at this time one of the shop-keepers became a bankrupt because of unthrifty habits and too much card-playing. Through an agent, Peter Forbes purchased the stock of muslins and calicos, of brocades and taffetas, calash bonnets, satin petticoats, shoe-buckles, laces, and buttons. And having given his promissory notes for said merchandise, Bill Saxby proudly hung his own sign-board over the door.

There was a flutter among the ladies. Here was a noteworthy sensation, to be served by an obsequious pirate with innocent blue eyes who had sailed the Spanish Main. A few days and it was evident that William Saxby, late of London, would conduct a thriving trade. He was fairly enraptured with his good fortune and congenial occupation and took it most amiably when Jack Cockrell or Joe Hawkridge sauntered in to tease him. He was a disgrace to Stede Bonnet, said they, and never had a pirate fallen to such a low estate as this.

Trimble Rogers was in no situation to rant at smug William, the linen draper. The old sea wolf who had outlived the most glorious era of the storied buccaneers, had a few gold pieces tucked away in his belt and at first he was content to loaf about the tavern, with an audience to listen to his wondrous tales which ranged from Henry Morgan to the great Captain Edward Davis. But he had never been a sot or an idler and soon he found himself lending a hand to assist the landlord in this way or that. And when disorder occurred, a word from this gray, hawk-eyed rover was enough to quell the wildest roisterers from the plantations.

Children strayed to the tavern green to sit upon his knee and twist those fierce mustachios of his, and their mothers ceased to snatch them away when they learned to know him better. Sometimes in his leisure hours he pored over his tattered little Bible with muttering lips and found pleasure in the Psalmist's denunciation of his enemies who were undoubtedly Spaniards in some other guise. He puttered about the flower beds with spade and rake and kept the bowling green clipped close with a keen sickle. In short, there was a niche for Trimble Rogers in his old age and he seemed well satisfied to fill it, just as Admiral Benbow spent his time among his posies at Deptford when he was not bombarding or blockading the French fleet off Dunkirk.

Jack Cockrell halted for a chat while passing the tavern and these two shipmates retired to a quiet corner of the porch. The blind fiddler was plying a lively bow and a dozen boys and girls danced on the turf. Trimble Rogers surveyed them with a fatherly aspect as he said:

"They ain't afeard of me, Jack, not one of 'em. Was ever a worn out old hulk laid up in a fairer berth?"

"None of the sea fever left, Trimble? What about Captain Bonnet? He is due off the bar two days hence. My uncle frowns upon my sailing with him to seek the treasure. He insists that I steer clear of pirates."

"And that's entirely proper, Jack. I look at things different like, now I be a worthy citizen. 'Tis better to fit out a little expedition of our own, if we can drag silly Bill out of his rubbishy shop."

"Oh, he will come fast enough after a while. We are all tired of the sea just now," said Jack. "What about Captain Bonnet and meeting him at Sullivan's Island to pass the word that we must decline his courteous invitation?"

"I shall tend to that," answered the retired buccaneer, "And from what gossip I glean in the tavern, Cap'n Bonnet had best steer for his home port of Barbadoes and quit his fancy piratin'. This fractious Governor has set his heart on hangin' him. And Colonel Stuart is up and about again and has ordered the King George to fit for sea. 'Tis rumored he has sent messages to the north'ard for Lieutenant Maynard to sail another cruise in his company."

"Then be sure you warn Stede Bonnet," strongly advised Jack. "I would not be disloyal to the Province or to mine own good uncle, but one good turn deserves another."

Two days after this, Trimble Rogers vanished from the tavern and found Jack's canoe tied in a cove beyond the settled part of the town. It was in the evening of this same day that Jack was reading in his room by candle-light when a tap-tap on the window shutter startled him. He threw it open and dimly perceived that Dorothy Stuart stood there. Her face was white in the gloom and she wore a dress of some dark stuff. At her beckoning gesture, Jack slipped through the window and silently led her into the lane.