I
WE, of these times, protected as we are by the laws and by the number
of people about us, can hardly comprehend such a life as that of the
American colonies in the early part of the eighteenth century, when
it was possible for a pirate like Capt. Teach, known as Blackbeard, to
exist, and for the governor and the secretary of the province in which
he lived perhaps to share his plunder, and to shelter and to protect him
against the law.
At that time the American colonists were in general a rough, rugged
people, knowing nothing of the finer things of life. They lived mostly
in little settlements, separated by long distances from one another,
so that they could neither make nor enforce laws to protect themselves.
Each man or little group of men had to depend upon his or their own
strength to keep what belonged to them, and to prevent fierce men or
groups of men from seizing what did not belong to them.
It is the natural disposition of everyone to get all that he can. Little
children, for instance, always try to take away from others that which
they want, and to keep it for their own. It is only by constant teaching
that they learn that they must not do so; that they must not take
by force what does not belong to them. So it is only by teaching and
training that people learn to be honest and not to take what is not
theirs. When this teaching is not sufficient to make a man learn to be
honest, or when there is something in the man's nature that makes him
not able to learn, then he only lacks the opportunity to seize upon the
things he wants, just as he would do if he were a little child.
In the colonies at that time, as was just said, men were too few and
scattered to protect themselves against those who had made up their
minds to take by force that which they wanted, and so it was that men
lived an unrestrained and lawless life, such as we of these times of
better government can hardly comprehend.
The usual means of commerce between province and province was by water
in coasting vessels. These coasting vessels were so defenseless, and the
different colonial governments were so ill able to protect them,
that those who chose to rob them could do it almost without danger to
themselves.
So it was that all the western world was, in those days, infested
with armed bands of cruising freebooters or pirates, who used to stop
merchant vessels and take from them what they chose.
Each province in those days was ruled over by a royal governor appointed
by the king. Each governor, at one time, was free to do almost as he
pleased in his own province. He was accountable only to the king and his
government, and England was so distant that he was really responsible
almost to nobody but himself.
The governors were naturally just as desirous to get rich quickly,
just as desirous of getting all that they could for themselves, as was
anybody else only they had been taught and had been able to learn that
it was not right to be an actual pirate or robber. They wanted to be
rich easily and quickly, but the desire was not strong enough to lead
them to dishonor themselves in their own opinion and in the opinion of
others by gratifying their selfishness. They would even have stopped
the pirates from doing what they did if they could, but their provincial
governments were too weak to prevent the freebooters from robbing
merchant vessels, or to punish them when they came ashore. The provinces
had no navies, and they really had no armies; neither were there enough
people living within the community to enforce the laws against those
stronger and fiercer men who were not honest.
After the things the pirates seized from merchant vessels were once
stolen they were altogether lost. Almost never did any owner apply for
them, for it would be useless to do so. The stolen goods and merchandise
lay in the storehouses of the pirates, seemingly without any owner
excepting the pirates themselves.
The governors and the secretaries of the colonies would not dishonor
themselves by pirating upon merchant vessels, but it did not seem so
wicked after the goods were stolen--and so altogether lost--to take a
part of that which seemed to have no owner.
A child is taught that it is a very wicked thing to take, for instance,
by force, a lump of sugar from another child; but when a wicked child
has seized the sugar from another and taken it around the corner, and
that other child from whom he has seized it has gone home crying, it
does not seem so wicked for the third child to take a bite of the sugar
when it is offered to him, even if he thinks it has been taken from some
one else.
It was just so, no doubt, that it did not seem so wicked to Governor
Eden and Secretary Knight of North Carolina, or to Governor Fletcher of
New York, or to other colonial governors, to take a part of the booty
that the pirates, such as Blackbeard, had stolen. It did not even seem
very wicked to compel such pirates to give up a part of what was not
theirs, and which seemed to have no owner.
In Governor Eden's time, however, the colonies had begun to be more
thickly peopled, and the laws had gradually become stronger and stronger
to protect men in the possession of what was theirs. Governor Eden was
the last of the colonial governors who had dealings with the pirates,
and Blackbeard was almost the last of the pirates who, with his banded
men, was savage and powerful enough to come and go as he chose among the
people whom he plundered.
Virginia, at that time, was the greatest and the richest of all the
American colonies, and upon the farther side of North Carolina was
the province of South Carolina, also strong and rich. It was these two
colonies that suffered the most from Blackbeard, and it began to be
that the honest men that lived in them could endure no longer to be
plundered.
The merchants and traders and others who suffered cried out loudly for
protection, so loudly that the governors of these provinces could not
help hearing them.
Governor Eden was petitioned to act against the pirates, but he would
do nothing, for he felt very friendly toward Blackbeard--just as a child
who has had a taste of the stolen sugar feels friendly toward the child
who gives it to him.
At last, when Blackbeard sailed up into the very heart of Virginia,
and seized upon and carried away the daughter of that colony's foremost
people, the governor of Virginia, finding that the governor of North
Carolina would do nothing to punish the outrage, took the matter into
his own hands and issued a proclamation offering a reward of one hundred
pounds for Blackbeard, alive or dead, and different sums for the other
pirates who were his followers.
Governor Spottiswood had the right to issue the proclamation, but he had
no right to commission Lieutenant Maynard, as he did, to take down an
armed force into the neighboring province and to attack the pirates in
the waters of the North Carolina sounds. It was all a part of the rude
and lawless condition of the colonies at the time that such a thing
could have been done.
The governor's proclamation against the pirates was issued upon the
eleventh day of November. It was read in the churches the Sunday
following and was posted upon the doors of all the government custom
offices in lower Virginia. Lieutenant Maynard, in the boats that Colonel
Parker had already fitted out to go against the pirates, set sail upon
the seventeenth of the month for Ocracoke. Five days later the battle
was fought.
Blackbeard's sloop was lying inside of Ocracoke Inlet among the
shoals and sand bars when he first heard of Governor Spottiswood's
proclamation.
There had been a storm, and a good many vessels had run into the
inlet for shelter. Blackbeard knew nearly all of the captains of these
vessels, and it was from them that he first heard of the proclamation.
He had gone aboard one of the vessels--a coaster from Boston. The wind
was still blowing pretty hard from the southeast. There were maybe a
dozen vessels lying within the inlet at that time, and the captain of
one of them was paying the Boston skipper a visit when Blackbeard came
aboard. The two captains had been talking together. They instantly
ceased when the pirate came down into the cabin, but he had heard enough
of their conversation to catch its drift. "Why d'ye stop?" he said.
"I heard what you said. Well, what then? D'ye think I mind it at all?
Spottiswood is going to send his bullies down here after me. That's
what you were saying. Well, what then? You don't think I'm afraid of his
bullies, do you?"
"Why, no, Captain, I didn't say you was afraid," said the visiting
captain.
"And what right has he got to send down here against me in North
Carolina, I should like to ask you?"
"He's got none at all," said the Boston captain, soothingly. "Won't you
take a taste of Hollands, Captain?"
"He's no more right to come blustering down here into Governor Eden's
province than I have to come aboard of your schooner here, Tom Burley,
and to carry off two or three kegs of this prime Hollands for my own
drinking."
Captain Burley--the Boston man--laughed a loud, forced laugh. "Why,
Captain," he said, "as for two or three kegs of Hollands, you won't
find that aboard. But if you'd like to have a keg of it for your own
drinking, I'll send it to you and be glad enough to do so for old
acquaintance' sake."
"But I tell you what 'tis, Captain," said the visiting skipper to
Blackbeard, "they're determined and set against you this time. I tell
you, Captain, Governor Spottiswood hath issued a hot proclamation
against you, and 't hath been read out in all the churches. I myself
saw it posted in Yorktown upon the customhouse door and read it there
myself. The governor offers one hundred pounds for you, and fifty pounds
for your officers, and twenty pounds each for your men."
"Well, then," said Blackbeard, holding up his glass, "here, I wish 'em
good luck, and when they get their hundred pounds for me they'll be in a
poor way to spend it. As for the Hollands," said he, turning to Captain
Burley, "I know what you've got aboard here and what you haven't. D'ye
suppose ye can blind me? Very well, you send over two kegs, and I'll let
you go without search." The two captains were very silent. "As for that
Lieutenant Maynard you're all talking about," said Blackbeard, "why, I
know him very well. He was the one who was so busy with the pirates down
Madagascar way. I believe you'd all like to see him blow me out of the
water, but he can't do it. There's nobody in His Majesty's service I'd
rather meet than Lieutenant Maynard. I'd teach him pretty briskly that
North Carolina isn't Madagascar."
On the evening of the twenty-second the two vessels under command of
Lieutenant Maynard came into the mouth of Ocracoke Inlet and there
dropped anchor. Meantime the weather had cleared, and all the vessels
but one had gone from the inlet. The one vessel that remained was a New
Yorker. It had been there over a night and a day, and the captain and
Blackbeard had become very good friends.
The same night that Maynard came into the inlet a wedding was held on
the shore. A number of men and women came up the beach in oxcarts and
sledges; others had come in boats from more distant points and across
the water.
The captain of the New Yorker and Blackbeard went ashore together a
little after dark. The New Yorker had been aboard of the pirate's sloop
for all the latter part of the afternoon, and he and Blackbeard had been
drinking together in the cabin. The New York man was now a little tipsy,
and he laughed and talked foolishly as he and Blackbeard were rowed
ashore. The pirate sat grim and silent.
It was nearly dark when they stepped ashore on the beach. The New York
captain stumbled and fell headlong, rolling over and over, and the crew
of the boat burst out laughing.
The people had already begun to dance in an open shed fronting upon the
shore. There were fires of pine knots in front of the building, lighting
up the interior with a red glare. A negro was playing a fiddle somewhere
inside, and the shed was filled with a crowd of grotesque dancing
figures--men and women. Now and then they called with loud voices as
they danced, and the squeaking of the fiddle sounded incessantly through
the noise of outcries and the stamp and shuffling of feet.
Captain Teach and the New York captain stood looking on. The New York
man had tilted himself against a post and stood there holding one arm
around it, supporting himself. He waved the other hand foolishly in time
to the music, now and then snapping his thumb and finger.
The young woman who had just been married approached the two. She had
been dancing, and she was warm and red, her hair blowzed about her head.
"Hi, Captain, won't you dance with me?" she said to Blackbeard.
Blackbeard stared at her. "Who be you?" he said.
She burst out laughing. "You look as if you'd eat a body," she cried.
Blackbeard's face gradually relaxed. "Why, to be sure, you're a brazen
one, for all the world," he said. "Well, I'll dance with you, that I
will. I'll dance the heart out of you."
He pushed forward, thrusting aside with his elbow the newly made
husband. The man, who saw that Blackbeard had been drinking, burst out
laughing, and the other men and women who had been standing around drew
away, so that in a little while the floor was pretty well cleared. One
could see the negro now; he sat on a barrel at the end of the room.
He grinned with his white teeth and, without stopping in his fiddling,
scraped his bow harshly across the strings, and then instantly changed
the tune to a lively jig. Blackbeard jumped up into the air and clapped
his heels together, giving, as he did so, a sharp, short yell. Then
he began instantly dancing grotesquely and violently. The woman danced
opposite to him, this way and that, with her knuckles on her hips.
Everybody burst out laughing at Blackbeard's grotesque antics. They
laughed again and again, clapping their hands, and the negro scraped
away on his fiddle like fury. The woman's hair came tumbling down her
back. She tucked it back, laughing and panting, and the sweat ran down
her face. She danced and danced. At last she burst out laughing and
stopped, panting. Blackbeard again jumped up in the air and clapped his
heels. Again he yelled, and as he did so, he struck his heels upon the
floor and spun around. Once more everybody burst out laughing, clapping
their hands, and the negro stopped fiddling.
Near by was a shanty or cabin where they were selling spirits, and by
and by Blackbeard went there with the New York captain, and presently
they began drinking again. "Hi, Captain!" called one of the men,
"Maynard's out yonder in the inlet. Jack Bishop's just come across from
t'other side. He says Mr. Maynard hailed him and asked for a pilot to
fetch him in."
"Well, here's luck to him, and he can't come in quick enough for me!"
cried out Blackbeard in his hoarse, husky voice.
"Well, Captain," called a voice, "will ye fight him to-morrow?"
"Aye," shouted the pirate, "if he can get in to me, I'll try to give
'em what they seek, and all they want of it into the bargain. As for
a pilot, I tell ye what 'tis--if any man hereabouts goes out there to
pilot that villain in 'twill be the worst day's work he ever did in all
of his life. 'Twon't be fit for him to live in these parts of America if
I am living here at the same time." There was a burst of laughter.
"Give us a toast, Captain! Give us something to drink to! Aye, Captain,
a toast! A toast!" a half dozen voices were calling out at the same
time.
"Well," cried out the pirate captain, "here's to a good, hot fight
to-morrow, and the best dog on top! 'Twill be, Bang! bang!--this way!"
He began pulling a pistol out of his pocket, but it stuck in the lining,
and he struggled and tugged at it. The men ducked and scrambled away
from before him, and then the next moment he had the pistol out of
his pocket. He swung it around and around. There was perfect silence.
Suddenly there was a flash and a stunning report, and instantly a crash
and tinkle of broken glass. One of the men cried out, and began picking
and jerking at the back of his neck. "He's broken that bottle all down
my neck," he called out.
"That's the way 'twill be," said Blackbeard.
"Lookee," said the owner of the place, "I won't serve out another drop
if 'tis going to be like that. If there's any more trouble I'll blow out
the lantern."
The sound of the squeaking and scraping of the fiddle and the shouts and
the scuffling feet still came from the shed where the dancing was going
on.
"Suppose you get your dose to-morrow, Captain," some one called out,
"what then?"
"Why, if I do," said Blackbeard, "I get it, and that's all there is of
it."
"Your wife'll be a rich widdy then, won't she?" cried one of the men;
and there was a burst of laughter.
"Why," said the New York captain,--"why, has a--a bloody p-pirate like
you a wife then--a--like any honest man?"
"She'll be no richer than she is now," said Blackbeard.
"She knows where you've hid your money, anyways. Don't she, Captain?"
called out a voice.
"The civil knows where I've hid my money," said Blackbeard, "and I know
where I've hid it; and the longest liver of the twain will git it all.
And that's all there is of it."
The gray of early day was beginning to show in the east when Blackbeard
and the New York captain came down to the landing together. The New York
captain swayed and toppled this way and that as he walked, now falling
against Blackbeard, and now staggering away from him.
II
Early in the morning--perhaps eight o'clock--Lieutenant Maynard sent a
boat from the schooner over to the settlement, which lay some four
or five miles distant. A number of men stood lounging on the landing,
watching the approach of the boat. The men rowed close up to the wharf,
and there lay upon their oars, while the boatswain of the schooner,
who was in command of the boat, stood up and asked if there was any man
there who could pilot them over the shoals.
Nobody answered, but all stared stupidly at him. After a while one of
the men at last took his pipe out of his mouth. "There ben't any pilot
here, master," said he; "we ben't pilots."
"Why, what a story you do tell!" roared the boatswain. "D'ye suppose
I've never been down here before, not to know that every man about here
knows the passes of the shoals?"
The fellow still held his pipe in his hand. He looked at another one of
the men. "Do you know the passes in over the shoals, Jem?" said he.
The man to whom he spoke was a young fellow with long, shaggy, sunburnt
hair hanging over his eyes in an unkempt mass. He shook his head,
grunting, "Na--I don't know naught about t' shoals."
"'Tis Lieutenant Maynard of His Majesty's navy in command of them
vessels out there," said the boatswain. "He'll give any man five pound
to pilot him in." The men on the wharf looked at one another, but still
no one spoke, and the boatswain stood looking at them. He saw that they
did not choose to answer him. "Why," he said, "I believe you've not got
right wits--that's what I believe is the matter with you. Pull me up
to the landing, men, and I'll go ashore and see if I can find anybody
that's willing to make five pound for such a little bit of piloting as
that."
After the boatswain had gone ashore the loungers still stood on the
wharf, looking down into the boat, and began talking to one another for
the men below to hear them. "They're coming in," said one, "to blow poor
Blackbeard out of the water." "Aye," said another, "he's so peaceable,
too, he is; he'll just lay still and let 'em blow and blow, he will."
"There's a young fellow there," said another of the men; "he don't look
fit to die yet, he don't. Why, I wouldn't be in his place for a thousand
pound." "I do suppose Blackbeard's so afraid he don't know how to see,"
said the first speaker.
At last one of the men in the boat spoke up. "Maybe he don't know how to
see," said he, "but maybe we'll blow some daylight into him afore we get
through with him."
Some more of the settlers had come out from the shore to the end of the
wharf, and there was now quite a crowd gathering there, all looking at
the men in the boat. "What do them Virginny 'baccy-eaters do down here
in Caroliny, anyway?" said one of the newcomers. "They've got no call to
be down here in North Caroliny waters."
"Maybe you can keep us away from coming, and maybe you can't," said a
voice from the boat.
"Why," answered the man on the wharf, "we could keep you away easy
enough, but you ben't worth the trouble, and that's the truth."
There was a heavy iron bolt lying near the edge of the landing. One of
the men upon the wharf slyly thrust it out with the end of his foot. It
hung for a moment and then fell into the boat below with a crash. "What
d'ye mean by that?" roared the man in charge of the boat. "What d'ye
mean, ye villains? D'ye mean to stave a hole in us?"
"Why," said the man who had pushed it, "you saw 'twasn't done a purpose,
didn't you?"
"Well, you try it again, and somebody'll get hurt," said the man in the
boat, showing the butt end of his pistol.
The men on the wharf began laughing. Just then the boatswain came down
from the settlement again, and out along the landing. The threatened
turbulence quieted as he approached, and the crowd moved sullenly aside
to let him pass. He did not bring any pilot with him, and he jumped down
into the stern of the boat, saying, briefly, "Push off." The crowd of
loungers stood looking after them as they rowed away, and when the
boat was some distance from the landing they burst out into a volley
of derisive yells. "The villains!" said the boatswain, "they are all in
league together. They wouldn't even let me go up into the settlement to
look for a pilot."
The lieutenant and his sailing master stood watching the boat as
it approached. "Couldn't you, then, get a pilot, Baldwin?" said Mr.
Maynard, as the boatswain scrambled aboard.
"No, I couldn't, sir," said the man. "Either they're all banded
together, or else they're all afraid of the villains. They wouldn't even
let me go up into the settlement to find one."
"Well, then," said Mr. Maynard, "we'll make shift to work in as best we
may by ourselves. 'Twill be high tide against one o'clock. We'll run in
then with sail as far as we can, and then we'll send you ahead with the
boat to sound for a pass, and we'll follow with the sweeps. You know the
waters pretty well, you say."
"They were saying ashore that the villain hath forty men aboard," said
the boatswain.(2)
(2) The pirate captain had really only twenty-five men
aboard of his ship at the time of the battle.
Lieutenant Maynard's force consisted of thirty-five men in the schooner
and twenty-five men in the sloop. He carried neither cannons nor
carronades, and neither of his vessels was very well fitted for the
purpose for which they were designed. The schooner, which he himself
commanded, offered almost no protection to the crew. The rail was not
more than a foot high in the waist, and the men on the deck were almost
entirely exposed. The rail of the sloop was perhaps a little higher, but
it, too, was hardly better adapted for fighting. Indeed, the lieutenant
depended more upon the moral force of official authority to overawe
the pirates than upon any real force of arms or men. He never believed,
until the very last moment, that the pirates would show any real fight.
It is very possible that they might not have done so had they not
thought that the lieutenant had actually no legal right supporting him
in his attack upon them in North Carolina waters.
It was about noon when anchor was hoisted, and, with the schooner
leading, both vessels ran slowly in before a light wind that had begun
to blow toward midday. In each vessel a man stood in the bows, sounding
continually with lead and line. As they slowly opened up the harbor
within the inlet, they could see the pirate sloop lying about three
miles away. There was a boat just putting off from it to the shore.
The lieutenant and his sailing master stood together on the roof of
the cabin deckhouse. The sailing master held a glass to his eye. "She
carries a long gun, sir," he said, "and four carronades. She'll be hard
to beat, sir, I do suppose, armed as we are with only light arms for
close fighting."
The lieutenant laughed. "Why, Brookes," he said, "you seem to think
forever of these men showing fight. You don't know them as I know them.
They have a deal of bluster and make a deal of noise, but when you seize
them and hold them with a strong hand, there's naught of fight left in
them. 'Tis like enough there'll not be so much as a musket fired to-day.
I've had to do with 'em often enough before to know my gentlemen well
by this time." Nor, as was said, was it until the very last that the
lieutenant could be brought to believe that the pirates had any stomach
for a fight.
The two vessels had reached perhaps within a mile of the pirate sloop
before they found the water too shoal to venture any farther with
the sail. It was then that the boat was lowered as the lieutenant had
planned, and the boatswain went ahead to sound, the two vessels, with
their sails still hoisted but empty of wind, pulling in after with
sweeps.
The pirate had also hoisted sail, but lay as though waiting for the
approach of the schooner and the sloop.
The boat in which the boatswain was sounding had run in a considerable
distance ahead of the two vessels, which were gradually creeping up with
the sweeps until they had reached to within less than half a mile of the
pirates--the boat with the boatswain maybe a quarter of a mile closer.
Suddenly there was a puff of smoke from the pirate sloop, and then
another and another, and the next moment there came the three reports of
muskets up the wind.
"By zounds!" said the lieutenant. "I do believe they're firing on the
boat!" And then he saw the boat turn and begin pulling toward them.
The boat with the boatswain aboard came rowing rapidly. Again there were
three or four puffs of smoke and three or four subsequent reports from
the distant vessel. Then, in a little while, the boat was alongside, and
the boatswain came scrambling aboard. "Never mind hoisting the boat,"
said the lieutenant; "we'll just take her in tow. Come aboard as quick
as you can." Then, turning to the sailing master, "Well, Brookes, you'll
have to do the best you can to get in over the shoals under half sail."
"But, sir," said the master, "we'll be sure to run aground."
"Very well, sir," said the lieutenant, "you heard my orders. If we run
aground we run aground, and that's all there is of it."
"I sounded as far as maybe a little over a fathom," said the mate, "but
the villains would let me go no nearer. I think I was in the channel,
though. 'Tis more open inside, as I mind me of it. There's a kind of
a hole there, and if we get in over the shoals just beyond where I was
we'll be all right."
"Very well, then, you take the wheel, Baldwin," said the lieutenant,
"and do the best you can for us."
Lieutenant Maynard stood looking out forward at the pirate vessel, which
they were now steadily nearing under half sail. He could see that there
were signs of bustle aboard and of men running around upon the deck.
Then he walked aft and around the cabin. The sloop was some distance
astern. It appeared to have run aground, and they were trying to push it
off with the sweeps. The lieutenant looked down into the water over
the stern, and saw that the schooner was already raising the mud in her
wane. Then he went forward along the deck. His men were crouching down
along by the low rail, and there was a tense quietness of expectation
about them. The lieutenant looked them over as he passed them.
"Johnson," he said, "do you take the lead and line and go forward and
sound a bit." Then to the others: "Now, my men, the moment we run her
aboard, you get aboard of her as quick as you can, do you understand?
Don't wait for the sloop or think about her, but just see that the
grappling irons are fast, and then get aboard. If any man offers to
resist you, shoot him down. Are you ready, Mr. Cringle?"
"Aye, aye, sir," said the gunner.
"Very well, then, be ready, men; we'll be aboard 'em in a minute or
two."
"There's less than a fathom of water here, sir," sang out Johnson from
the bows. As he spoke there was a sudden soft jar and jerk, then the
schooner was still. They were aground. "Push her off to the lee there!
Let go your sheets!" roared the boatswain from the wheel. "Push her off
to the lee." He spun the wheel around as he spoke. A half a dozen men
sprang up, seized the sweeps, and plunged them into the water. Others
ran to help them, but the sweeps only sank into the mud without moving
the schooner. The sails had fallen off and they were flapping and
thumping and clapping in the wind. Others of the crew had scrambled
to their feet and ran to help those at the sweeps. The lieutenant had
walked quickly aft again. They were very close now to the pirate sloop,
and suddenly some one hailed him from aboard of her. When he turned he
saw that there was a man standing up on the rail of the pirate sloop,
holding by the back stays. "Who are you?" he called, from the distance,
"and whence come you? What do you seek here? What d'ye mean, coming down
on us this way?"
The lieutenant heard somebody say, "That's Blackbeard hisself." And he
looked with great interest at the distant figure.
The pirate stood out boldly against the cloudy sky. Somebody seemed to
speak to him from behind. He turned his head and then he turned round
again. "We're only peaceful merchantmen!" he called out. "What authority
have you got to come down upon us this way? If you'll come aboard I'll
show you my papers and that we're only peaceful merchantmen."
"The villains!" said the lieutenant to the master, who stood beside
him. "They're peaceful merchantmen, are they! They look like peaceful
merchantmen, with four carronades and a long gun aboard!" Then he called
out across the water, "I'll come aboard with my schooner as soon as I
can push her off here."
"If you undertake to come aboard of me," called the pirate, "I'll shoot
into you. You've got no authority to board me, and I won't have you do
it. If you undertake it 'twill be at your own risk, for I'll neither ask
quarter of you nor give none."
"Very well," said the lieutenant, "if you choose to try that, you may do
as you please; for I'm coming aboard of you as sure as heaven."
"Push off the bow there!" called the boatswain at the wheel. "Look
alive! Why don't you push off the bow?"
"She's hard aground!" answered the gunner. "We can't budge her an inch."
"If they was to fire into us now," said the sailing master, "they'd
smash us to pieces."
"They won't fire into us," said the lieutenant. "They won't dare to."
He jumped down from the cabin deckhouse as he spoke, and went forward to
urge the men in pushing off the boat. It was already beginning to move.
At that moment the sailing master suddenly called out, "Mr. Maynard! Mr.
Maynard! they're going to give us a broadside!"
Almost before the words were out of his mouth, before Lieutenant Maynard
could turn, there came a loud and deafening crash, and then instantly
another, and a third, and almost as instantly a crackling and rending of
broken wood. There were clean yellow splinters flying everywhere. A man
fell violently against the lieutenant, nearly overturning him, but he
caught at the stays and so saved himself. For one tense moment he stood
holding his breath. Then all about him arose a sudden outcry of groans
and shouts and oaths. The man who had fallen against him was lying face
down upon the deck. His thighs were quivering, and a pool of blood was
spreading and running out from under him. There were other men down, all
about the deck. Some were rising; some were trying to rise; some only
moved.
There was a distant sound of yelling and cheering and shouting. It was
from the pirate sloop. The pirates were rushing about upon her decks.
They had pulled the cannon back, and, through the grunting sound of
the groans about him, the lieutenant could distinctly hear the thud and
punch of the rammers, and he knew they were going to shoot again.
The low rail afforded almost no shelter against such a broadside, and
there was nothing for it but to order all hands below for the time
being.
"Get below!" roared out the lieutenant. "All hands get below and lie
snug for further orders!" In obedience the men ran scrambling below into
the hold, and in a little while the decks were nearly clear except
for the three dead men and some three or four wounded. The boatswain,
crouching down close to the wheel, and the lieutenant himself were the
only others upon deck. Everywhere there were smears and sprinkles of
blood. "Where's Brookes?" the lieutenant called out.
"He's hurt in the arm, sir, and he's gone below," said the boatswain.
Thereupon the lieutenant himself walked over to the forecastle hatch,
and, hailing the gunner, ordered him to get up another ladder, so that
the men could be run up on deck if the pirates should undertake to come
aboard. At that moment the boatswain at the wheel called out that the
villains were going to shoot again, and the lieutenant, turning, saw the
gunner aboard of the pirate sloop in the act of touching the iron to the
touchhole. He stooped down. There was another loud and deafening crash
of cannon, one, two, three--four--the last two almost together--and
almost instantly the boatswain called out, "'Tis the sloop, sir! look at
the sloop!"
The sloop had got afloat again, and had been coming up to the aid of the
schooner, when the pirates fired their second broadside now at her. When
the lieutenant looked at her she was quivering with the impact of the
shot, and the next moment she began falling off to the wind, and he
could see the wounded men rising and falling and struggling upon her
decks.
At the same moment the boatswain called out that the enemy was coming
aboard, and even as he spoke the pirate sloop came drifting out from the
cloud of smoke that enveloped her, looming up larger and larger as she
came down upon them. The lieutenant still crouched down under the rail,
looking out at them. Suddenly, a little distance away, she came about,
broadside on, and then drifted. She was close aboard now. Something came
flying through the air--another and another. They were bottles. One of
them broke with a crash upon the deck. The others rolled over to
the farther rail. In each of them a quick-match was smoking. Almost
instantly there was a flash and a terrific report, and the air was full
of the whiz and singing of broken particles of glass and iron. There was
another report, and then the whole air seemed full of gunpowder smoke.
"They're aboard of us!" shouted the boatswain, and even as he spoke the
lieutenant roared out, "All hands to repel boarders!" A second later
there came the heavy, thumping bump of the vessels coming together.
Lieutenant Maynard, as he called out the order, ran forward through the
smoke, snatching one of his pistols out of his pocket and the cutlass
out of its sheath as he did so. Behind him the men were coming, swarming
up from below. There was a sudden stunning report of a pistol, and then
another and another, almost together. There was a groan and the fall of
a heavy body, and then a figure came jumping over the rail, with two or
three more directly following. The lieutenant was in the midst of the
gun powder smoke, when suddenly Blackbeard was before him. The pirate
captain had stripped himself naked to the waist. His shaggy black hair
was falling over his eyes, and he looked like a demon fresh from the
pit, with his frantic face. Almost with the blindness of instinct the
lieutenant thrust out his pistol, firing it as he did so. The pirate
staggered back: he was down--no; he was up again. He had a pistol in
each hand; but there was a stream of blood running down his naked
ribs. Suddenly, the mouth of a pistol was pointing straight at the
lieutenant's head. He ducked instinctively, striking upward with his
cutlass as he did so. There was a stunning, deafening report almost in
his ear. He struck again blindly with his cutlass. He saw the flash of a
sword and flung up his guard almost instinctively, meeting the crash
of the descending blade. Somebody shot from behind him, and at the same
moment he saw some one else strike the pirate. Blackbeard staggered
again, and this time there was a great gash upon his neck. Then one of
Maynard's own men tumbled headlong upon him. He fell with the man, but
almost instantly he had scrambled to his feet again, and as he did so he
saw that the pirate sloop had drifted a little away from them, and that
their grappling irons had evidently parted. His hand was smarting as
though struck with the lash of a whip. He looked around him; the pirate
captain was nowhere to be seen--yes, there he was, lying by the rail. He
raised himself upon his elbow, and the lieutenant saw that he was trying
to point a pistol at him, with an arm that wavered and swayed blindly,
the pistol nearly falling from his fingers. Suddenly his other elbow
gave way and he fell down upon his face. He tried to raise himself--he
fell down again. There was a report and a cloud of smoke, and when it
cleared away Blackbeard had staggered up again. He was a terrible figure
his head nodding down upon his breast. Somebody shot again, and then the
swaying figure toppled and fell. It lay still for a moment--then rolled
over--then lay still again.
There was a loud splash of men jumping overboard, and then, almost
instantly, the cry of "Quarter! quarter!" The lieutenant ran to the
edge of the vessel. It was as he had thought: the grappling irons of the
pirate sloop had parted, and it had drifted away. The few pirates who
had been left aboard of the schooner had jumped overboard and were now
holding up their hands. "Quarter!" they cried. "Don't shoot!--quarter!"
And the fight was over.
The lieutenant looked down at his hand, and then he saw, for the first
time, that there was a great cutlass gash across the back of it, and
that his arm and shirt sleeve were wet with blood. He went aft, holding
the wrist of his wounded hand. The boatswain was still at the wheel. "By
zounds!" said the lieutenant, with a nervous, quavering laugh, "I didn't
know there was such fight in the villains."
His wounded and shattered sloop was again coming up toward him under
sail, but the pirates had surrendered, and the fight was over.