CAPTAIN THOMAS OF THE ROYAL JAMES
When Blackbeard's little fleet anchored in Topsail Inlet, Stede Bonnet,
who had not been informed of the intentions of the pirate, was a good
deal puzzled. Since joining Blackbeard's fleet in the vessel which came
up from Belize, Bonnet had considered himself very shabbily treated, and
his reasons for that opinion were not bad. During the engagements off
Charles Town his services had not been required and his opinion had not
been consulted, Blackbeard having no use for the one and no respect for
the other. The pirate captain had taken a fancy to Ben Greenway, while
his contempt for the Scotchman's master increased day by day; and it was
for this reason that Greenway had been taken on board the flag-ship,
while Bonnet remained on one of the smaller vessels.
Bonnet was in a discontented and somewhat sulky mood, but when
Blackbeard's full plans were made known to him and he found that he
might again resume command of his own vessel, the Revenge, if he chose
to do so, his eyes began to sparkle once more.
Ben Greenway soon resumed his former position with Bonnet, for it did
not take Blackbeard very long to settle up his affairs, and in a very
short time he became tired of the work of conversion; or, to speak more
correctly, of the bore of talking about it. Bonnet was glad to have the
Scotchman back again, although he never ceased to declare his desire to
get rid of this faithful friend and helper; for, when the Revenge again
came into his hands, there were many things to be done, and few people
to help him do it.
"It will be merchandise an' fair trade this time," said Ben, "an' ye'll
find it no' so easy as your piracies, though safer. An' when ye're off
to see the Governor an' hae got your pardon, it'll be a happy day,
Master Bonnet, for ye an' for your daughter, an' for your brother-in-law
an' everybody in Bridgetown wha either knew ye or respected ye."
"No more of that," cried Bonnet. "I did not say I was going to
Bridgetown, or that I wanted anybody there to respect me. It is my
purpose to fit out the Revenge as a privateer and get a commission to
sail in her in the war between Spain and the Allies. This will be much
more to my taste, Ben Greenway, than trading in sugar and hides."
Greenway was very grave.
"There is so little difference," said he, "between a privateer an' a
pirate that it is a great strain on a common mind to keep them separate;
but a commission from the king is better than a commission from the
de'il, an' we'll hope there won't be much o' a war after all is said an'
done."
There was not much intercourse between Blackbeard and Bonnet at Topsail
Inlet. The pirate was on very good terms with the authorities at that
place, who for their own sakes cared not much to interfere with him, and
Bonnet had his own work in hand and industriously engaged in it. He went
to Bath and got his pardon; he procured a clearance for St. Thomas,
where he freely announced his intention to take out a commission as
privateer, and he fitted out his vessel as best he could. Of men he had
not many, but when he left the inlet he sailed down to an island on the
coast, where Blackbeard, having had too many men on his return from
Charles Town, had marooned a large number of the sailors belonging to
his different crews, finding this the easiest way of getting rid of
them. Bonnet took these men on board with the avowed intention of taking
them to St. Thomas, and then he set sail upon the high seas as free and
untrammelled as a fish-hawk sweeping over the surface of a harbour with
clearance papers tied to his leg.
Stede Bonnet had changed very much since he last trod the quarter-deck
of the Revenge as her captain. He was not so important to look at, and
he put on fewer airs of authority, but he issued a great many more
commands. In fact, he had learned much about a sailor's life, of
navigation and the management of a vessel, and was far better able to
command a ship than he had ever been before. He had had a long rest from
the position of a pirate captain, and he had not failed to take
advantage of the lessons which had been involuntarily given him by the
veteran scoundrels who had held him in contempt. He was now, to a great
extent, sailing-master as well as captain of the Revenge; but Ben
Greenway, who was much given to that sort of thing, undertook to offer
Bonnet some advice in regard to his course.
"I am no sailor," said he, "but I ken a chart when I see it, an' it is
my opeenion that there is no need o' your sailin' so far to the east
before ye turn about southward. There is naething much stickin' out from
the coast between here an' St. Thomas."
Bonnet looked at the Scotchman with lofty contempt.
"Perhaps you can tell me," said he, "what there is stickin' out from the
coast between here and Ocracoke Inlet, where you yourself told me that
Blackbeard had gone with the one sloop he kept for himself?"
"Blackbeard!" shouted the Scotchman, "an' what in the de'il have ye got
to do wi' Blackbeard?"
"Do with that infernal dog?" cried Bonnet, "I have everything to do with
him before I do aught with anybody or anything besides. He stole from me
my possessions, he degraded me from my position, he made me a
laughing-stock to my men, and he even made me blush and bow my head with
shame before my daughter and my brother-in-law, two people in whose
sight I would have stood up grander and bolder than before any others in
the world. He took away from me my sword and he gave me instead a
wretched pen; he made me nothing where I had been everything. He even
ceased to consider me any more than if I had been the dirty deck under
his feet. And then, when he had done with my property and could get no
more good out of it, he cast it to me in charity as a man would toss a
penny to a beggar. Before I sail anywhere else, Ben Greenway," continued
Bonnet, "I sail for Ocracoke Inlet, and when I sight Blackbeard's
miserable little sloop I shall pour broadside after broadside into her
until I sink his wretched craft with his bedizened carcass on board of
it."
"But wi' your men stand by ye?" cried Greenway. "Ye're neither a pirate
nor a vessel o' war to enter into a business like that."
Bonnet swore one of his greatest oaths. "There is no business nor war
for me, Ben Greenway," he cried, "until I have taught that insolent
Blackbeard what manner of man I am."
Ben Greenway was very much disheartened. "If Blackbeard should sink the
Revenge instead of Master Bonnet sinking him," he said to himself, "and
would be kind enough to maroon my old master an' me, it might be the
best for everybody after all. Master Bonnet is vera humble-minded an'
complacent when bad fortune comes upon him, an' it is my opeenion that
on a desert island I could weel manage him for the good o' his soul."
But there were no vessels sunk on that cruise. Blackbeard had gone,
nobody knew where, and after a time Bonnet gave up the search for his
old enemy and turned his bow southward. Now Ben Greenway's countenance
gleamed once more.
"It'll be a glad day at Spanish Town when Mistress Kate shall get my
letter."
"And what have you been writing to her?" cried Bonnet.
"I told her," said Ben Greenway, "how at last ye hae come to your right
mind, an' how ye are a true servant o' the king, wi' your pardon in your
pocket an' your commission waitin' for ye at St. Thomas, an' that,
whatever else ye may do at sea, there'll be no more black flag floatin'
over your head, nor a see-saw plank wobblin' under the feet o' onybody
else. The days o' your piracies are over, an' ye're an honest mon once
more."
"You wrote her that?" said Bonnet, with a frown.
"Ay," said Greenway, "an' I left it in the care o' a good mon, whose
ship is weel on its way to Kingston by this day."
That afternoon Captain Bonnet called all his men together and addressed
them.
He made a very good speech, a better one than that delivered when he
first took real command of the Revenge after sailing out of the river at
Bridgetown, and it was listened to with respectful and earnest interest.
In brief manner he explained to all on board that he had thrown to the
winds all idea of merchandising or privateering; that his pardon and his
ship's clearance were of no value to him except he should happen to get
into some uncomfortable predicament with the law; that he had no idea of
sailing towards St. Thomas, but intended to proceed up the coast to burn
and steal and rob and slay wherever he might find it convenient to do
so; that he had brought the greater part of his crew from the desert
island where Blackbeard had left them because he knew that they were
stout and reckless fellows, just the sort of men he wanted for the
piratical cruise he was about to begin; and that, in order to mislead
any government authorities who by land or sea might seek to interfere
with him, he had changed the name of the good old Revenge to the Royal
James, while its captain, once Stede Bonnet, was now to be known on
board and everywhere else as Captain Thomas, with nothing against him.
He concluded by saying that all that had been done on that ship from the
time she first hoisted the black flag until the present moment was
nothing at all compared to the fire and the blood and the booty which
should follow in the wake of that gallant vessel, the Royal James,
commanded by Captain Thomas.
The men looked at each other, but did not say much. They were all
pirates, although few of them had regularly started out on a piratical
career, and there was nothing new to them in this sort of piratical
dishonour. In the little cruise after Blackbeard their new captain had
shown himself to be a good man, ready with his oaths and very certain
about what he wanted done. So, whenever Stede Bonnet chose to run up the
Jolly Roger, he might do it for all they cared.
Poor Ben Greenway sat apart, his head bowed upon his hands.
"You seem to be in a bad case, old Ben," said Bonnet, gazing down upon
him, "but you throw yourself into needless trouble. As soon as I lay
hold of some craft which I am willing shall go away with a sound hull, I
will put you on board of her and let you go back to the farm. I will
keep you no longer among these wicked people, Ben Greenway, and in this
wicked place."
Ben shook his head. "I started wi' ye an' I stay wi' ye," said he, "an'
I'll follow ye to the vera gates o' hell, but farther than that, Master
Bonnet, I willna go; at the gates o' hell I leave ye!"