VIIAbdicating the high estate of admiral and breaking up his fleet, leaving a part of it, as we have seen, to roll as wreckage on the tides of Topsail Inlet, Blackbeard came back to Ocracoke and a lazy summer.Perhaps it was during these thoughtful, meditative days that he persuaded a young lady to become his fourteenth wife for there is record of a merry marriage at which Governor Eden himself condescended to appear as a well-wishing guest and give the occasion the suitable air to promote the new Mrs. Blackbeard’s social fortunes. At the feast a good deal of somebody else’s rum, somebody else’s victuals and somebody else’s money were laid under contribution. Governor Eden, however, had a peculiarly happy detachment to the minor questions of somebody else’s property. That phase of his disposition doubly endeared him to his pirate friend.But the gold pieces that he sent spinning dwindled anon; little Toby Knight began to bore him and even the Governor commenced to get on his nerves. Respectable shore life was entirely too much for him, so Blackbeard again yearned for the reeling decks and the roar of hisbully boys. With a laudable regard for the proprieties, he gave out that he was putting to sea again on a “commercial venture,” and even registered his ship at the local customs house.“Salvage,” he murmured, looking intently into little Toby’s honest face; pressing the secretary’s round, fat hand in farewell.“Salvage,” grinned Toby, glad to get even the friendly grip of the sea monster released, and instinctively rubbing his hand slyly on the tails of his flaring coat.Still delicate, Blackbeard waited until the land faded into the sea line behind him ere, with the feeling that he had had a pleasant vacation and was glad to get back to work again, he threw out his sinister ensign,—the flag of skull and bones. Blackbeard was himself again.And now there happened that which many of the crew had often fearfully predicted,—the Devil came aboard Blackbeard’s ship.The weather had been threatening for some time, and now, on a late afternoon, the great ocean heaved murmurously beneath the bows. In the rigging the wind fretted and complained, shrilly and more shrilly as though the white-green tumult of the waters was disturbing it; in the cabin below the dark horror of delirium tremens was falling upon the bearded master. On the decks, the mate—doubtless the effective Mr. Richards—stripped his ship for the approaching combat and drove his men aloft intothe swaying yards. Now and then Blackbeard, still the sailor, reeled on his cabin threshold and blurted insane orders to the gale. Whereat Mr. Richards, well accustomed to the storms of wind and waves and delirious masters, slammed the door in his face and laughingly went about his work.Palely the day expired in the west, and as though they had only been waiting for the night, wind and water strengthened to the struggle and now persuaded a third element, the rain, to join them in the conspiracy of destruction. These three witches began to make the cauldron boil.Mr. Richards still laughed; his sails were in and he was with the helmsman, sweating to keep the vessel from a fatal lurch.“What’s that sound?” gasped the steersman to his officer, leaning full weight to his work. Forward they could see nothing but the black void and a white wash of sea where their decks and bowsprit should ordinarily be, nor could look in that direction long for the whips of rain with which the screaming winds lashed them.“The wind,” hollered Richards, bending close to be heard.The steersman shook his head. “No—that!” he shouted.The gale paused in one of those lulls by which it seems to recover for a effort of fresh fury. And in the second of quietness there rose and fell a long, horrible scream of inhuman defiance.Richards grinned and pointed with his finger below. Blackbeard was wrestling with the principalities and powers of darkness.“Who’s that?” bellowed the steersman, his momentary reassurance flown. His face was turned with a gaze of inexpressible fear at the gleaming, plunging masts. “There—there—”Richards peered in the rain-whipped night; peered and shrank back, his mouth open wide and his eyes protruding. He rallied, pulled out a heavy wooden pin from the ship’s side and started forward. Within ten paces of the main-mast he stopped, and gathering his strength, hurled the pin with all his force crashingly against the mast. The pin fell into an invading sea and was whirled overboard. But the Thing stood, dark and sinister.Richards felt the ship getting beyond control of the cowering helmsman. He rushed back in time to save them from ruin; the man had dropped to the deck, a bundle of abject fright. While the mate was still calling for help, the boatswain crawled up on hands and knees and turned an ashen face to his superior.“There’s a strange man,” he shouted as loudly as a quavering voice would permit, indicating with a backward jerk of his thumb. “Aloft—”The Thing was moving about the yards; there was a sort of solid blackness to It that somehowmade It visible even against its somber background.Turning the helm over to the boatswain, the mate rushed below for his pistol, but when he came back to the deck the Thing was gone.Richards laughed thinly. “The Devil’s signed on with us, boys!”“Then that’s the end o’ us,” groaned the boatswain.But the fact that a New Hand was on the ship if not on her articles was not immediately disastrous. For very shortly after that vivid night, Blackbeard, recovered now of his bout, met and took a very fine French ship, which was in so excellent a condition that to call it “salvage” was indeed the very subtlest of piratical jokes.And the joke was made good, too, when, taking her at once into Ocracoke, His Excellency, with little hesitation, gave her captor a certificate of salvage, accepting as his fee for the certificate some sixty hogsheads of sugar. What the Governor did not use, Toby Knight obligingly allowed to be stored in the Knight barn.This was the final straw that caused the proverbial fatal accident to the camel. North Carolina, at the end of patience, now flared up, and, ignoring her own corrupt authorities, appealed to the capable Alexander Spotswood, Governor of Virginia, for the extermination of the pest of Ocracoke Inlet.Virginia heard and responded and despatchedCaptain Brand and Lieutenant Maynard, each in command of a small ship of war, to the Carolina coast in quest of Blackbeard.Brand and Maynard appreciated the size of their job, so they gathered into their crews picked men who were volunteering for the duty, and who would be likely to keep the same zestful lookout for the oncoming terror as does a whaler in fat and profitable fishing grounds for the dark bulk which shall fill all his barrels with oil.They reached Pamlico Sound, of which Ocracoke Inlet is a part, toward the evening of November 21, and with jumping pulses spotted the masts of the black beast as he lay in wait for prey. Blackbeard was surprised just as Bonnet had been, and like Bonnet spent the night in getting ready for battle.The Virginians had to lie outside the inlet all night and wait for the morning to light them through the risky channels. When next day they sailed in, Blackbeard, knowing the soundings, was able to make the running-fight pirate tactics prescribed for such emergencies, and blasted Brand and Maynard with his broadsides; and though steeped to the eyebrows in rum, he was at all times the adept and finished sailor.But the enemy were getting at him, too, and his decks were cluttered with the slain. He was undermanned, having only some twenty men at the time, so that his losses from the attackers’ fire left him but a sparse crew to work his shipand man eight guns, as well as keep going an effective musketry volleying. There was left but one resource, and that was hand-to-hand conflict.He got within grappling distance of Maynard’s ship, and with his usual ferocity of appearance and manner threw himself and his surviving men into the Virginian’s rigging, and plunged, demoniacally fighting, to the decks. For a second the pirates shook their enemy with the shock of the impact, but not long; with that roaring vigor which gave the English-speaking sailors their dominion of the oceans of the world, Maynard’s men rallied and an indescribable butchering ensued.Blackbeard made for the commander, and Maynard met him with equal courage and the added strength which the moral side of the matter always lends a warrior’s arm. The arch-pirate’s body was open at more than twenty places; but on those heaving, blood-wet decks he fought the lieutenant with the verve of an athlete fresh for the field. A sudden chance and he thrust a cocked pistol straight into his opponent’s chest, but before the finger could pull the trigger back, Maynard laid the cutlass squarely across the pirate’s throat. He sank to the deck like a slaughtered bull.He fought the lieutenant with the verve of an athlete fresh for the field.It was all over. Those pirates who could, leaped over the bulwarks and swam to the shore, leaving a red trail in the water behind them.Twilight came down on the sea. Beneath theshallow waters the bodies of the slain quivered with the motion of the waves as if they were still alive and still struggling, and among them was the headless corpse of Blackbeard.For that terrible head was hung at the bowsprit of Maynard’s ship. All the way back to Virginia the gruesome figurehead swung and dipped and ducked with the movements of the vessel; the ocean pounded and played with it and twisted that strange beard into more fantastic shapes than Blackbeard had ever dreamed of, weaving into it the weeds and slime-flora of the sea, and for a last touch washed from their sockets the baleful eyes which glared in the fixed glassiness of death.
Abdicating the high estate of admiral and breaking up his fleet, leaving a part of it, as we have seen, to roll as wreckage on the tides of Topsail Inlet, Blackbeard came back to Ocracoke and a lazy summer.
Perhaps it was during these thoughtful, meditative days that he persuaded a young lady to become his fourteenth wife for there is record of a merry marriage at which Governor Eden himself condescended to appear as a well-wishing guest and give the occasion the suitable air to promote the new Mrs. Blackbeard’s social fortunes. At the feast a good deal of somebody else’s rum, somebody else’s victuals and somebody else’s money were laid under contribution. Governor Eden, however, had a peculiarly happy detachment to the minor questions of somebody else’s property. That phase of his disposition doubly endeared him to his pirate friend.
But the gold pieces that he sent spinning dwindled anon; little Toby Knight began to bore him and even the Governor commenced to get on his nerves. Respectable shore life was entirely too much for him, so Blackbeard again yearned for the reeling decks and the roar of hisbully boys. With a laudable regard for the proprieties, he gave out that he was putting to sea again on a “commercial venture,” and even registered his ship at the local customs house.
“Salvage,” he murmured, looking intently into little Toby’s honest face; pressing the secretary’s round, fat hand in farewell.
“Salvage,” grinned Toby, glad to get even the friendly grip of the sea monster released, and instinctively rubbing his hand slyly on the tails of his flaring coat.
Still delicate, Blackbeard waited until the land faded into the sea line behind him ere, with the feeling that he had had a pleasant vacation and was glad to get back to work again, he threw out his sinister ensign,—the flag of skull and bones. Blackbeard was himself again.
And now there happened that which many of the crew had often fearfully predicted,—the Devil came aboard Blackbeard’s ship.
The weather had been threatening for some time, and now, on a late afternoon, the great ocean heaved murmurously beneath the bows. In the rigging the wind fretted and complained, shrilly and more shrilly as though the white-green tumult of the waters was disturbing it; in the cabin below the dark horror of delirium tremens was falling upon the bearded master. On the decks, the mate—doubtless the effective Mr. Richards—stripped his ship for the approaching combat and drove his men aloft intothe swaying yards. Now and then Blackbeard, still the sailor, reeled on his cabin threshold and blurted insane orders to the gale. Whereat Mr. Richards, well accustomed to the storms of wind and waves and delirious masters, slammed the door in his face and laughingly went about his work.
Palely the day expired in the west, and as though they had only been waiting for the night, wind and water strengthened to the struggle and now persuaded a third element, the rain, to join them in the conspiracy of destruction. These three witches began to make the cauldron boil.
Mr. Richards still laughed; his sails were in and he was with the helmsman, sweating to keep the vessel from a fatal lurch.
“What’s that sound?” gasped the steersman to his officer, leaning full weight to his work. Forward they could see nothing but the black void and a white wash of sea where their decks and bowsprit should ordinarily be, nor could look in that direction long for the whips of rain with which the screaming winds lashed them.
“The wind,” hollered Richards, bending close to be heard.
The steersman shook his head. “No—that!” he shouted.
The gale paused in one of those lulls by which it seems to recover for a effort of fresh fury. And in the second of quietness there rose and fell a long, horrible scream of inhuman defiance.Richards grinned and pointed with his finger below. Blackbeard was wrestling with the principalities and powers of darkness.
“Who’s that?” bellowed the steersman, his momentary reassurance flown. His face was turned with a gaze of inexpressible fear at the gleaming, plunging masts. “There—there—”
Richards peered in the rain-whipped night; peered and shrank back, his mouth open wide and his eyes protruding. He rallied, pulled out a heavy wooden pin from the ship’s side and started forward. Within ten paces of the main-mast he stopped, and gathering his strength, hurled the pin with all his force crashingly against the mast. The pin fell into an invading sea and was whirled overboard. But the Thing stood, dark and sinister.
Richards felt the ship getting beyond control of the cowering helmsman. He rushed back in time to save them from ruin; the man had dropped to the deck, a bundle of abject fright. While the mate was still calling for help, the boatswain crawled up on hands and knees and turned an ashen face to his superior.
“There’s a strange man,” he shouted as loudly as a quavering voice would permit, indicating with a backward jerk of his thumb. “Aloft—”
The Thing was moving about the yards; there was a sort of solid blackness to It that somehowmade It visible even against its somber background.
Turning the helm over to the boatswain, the mate rushed below for his pistol, but when he came back to the deck the Thing was gone.
Richards laughed thinly. “The Devil’s signed on with us, boys!”
“Then that’s the end o’ us,” groaned the boatswain.
But the fact that a New Hand was on the ship if not on her articles was not immediately disastrous. For very shortly after that vivid night, Blackbeard, recovered now of his bout, met and took a very fine French ship, which was in so excellent a condition that to call it “salvage” was indeed the very subtlest of piratical jokes.
And the joke was made good, too, when, taking her at once into Ocracoke, His Excellency, with little hesitation, gave her captor a certificate of salvage, accepting as his fee for the certificate some sixty hogsheads of sugar. What the Governor did not use, Toby Knight obligingly allowed to be stored in the Knight barn.
This was the final straw that caused the proverbial fatal accident to the camel. North Carolina, at the end of patience, now flared up, and, ignoring her own corrupt authorities, appealed to the capable Alexander Spotswood, Governor of Virginia, for the extermination of the pest of Ocracoke Inlet.
Virginia heard and responded and despatchedCaptain Brand and Lieutenant Maynard, each in command of a small ship of war, to the Carolina coast in quest of Blackbeard.
Brand and Maynard appreciated the size of their job, so they gathered into their crews picked men who were volunteering for the duty, and who would be likely to keep the same zestful lookout for the oncoming terror as does a whaler in fat and profitable fishing grounds for the dark bulk which shall fill all his barrels with oil.
They reached Pamlico Sound, of which Ocracoke Inlet is a part, toward the evening of November 21, and with jumping pulses spotted the masts of the black beast as he lay in wait for prey. Blackbeard was surprised just as Bonnet had been, and like Bonnet spent the night in getting ready for battle.
The Virginians had to lie outside the inlet all night and wait for the morning to light them through the risky channels. When next day they sailed in, Blackbeard, knowing the soundings, was able to make the running-fight pirate tactics prescribed for such emergencies, and blasted Brand and Maynard with his broadsides; and though steeped to the eyebrows in rum, he was at all times the adept and finished sailor.
But the enemy were getting at him, too, and his decks were cluttered with the slain. He was undermanned, having only some twenty men at the time, so that his losses from the attackers’ fire left him but a sparse crew to work his shipand man eight guns, as well as keep going an effective musketry volleying. There was left but one resource, and that was hand-to-hand conflict.
He got within grappling distance of Maynard’s ship, and with his usual ferocity of appearance and manner threw himself and his surviving men into the Virginian’s rigging, and plunged, demoniacally fighting, to the decks. For a second the pirates shook their enemy with the shock of the impact, but not long; with that roaring vigor which gave the English-speaking sailors their dominion of the oceans of the world, Maynard’s men rallied and an indescribable butchering ensued.
Blackbeard made for the commander, and Maynard met him with equal courage and the added strength which the moral side of the matter always lends a warrior’s arm. The arch-pirate’s body was open at more than twenty places; but on those heaving, blood-wet decks he fought the lieutenant with the verve of an athlete fresh for the field. A sudden chance and he thrust a cocked pistol straight into his opponent’s chest, but before the finger could pull the trigger back, Maynard laid the cutlass squarely across the pirate’s throat. He sank to the deck like a slaughtered bull.
He fought the lieutenant with the verve of an athlete fresh for the field.
He fought the lieutenant with the verve of an athlete fresh for the field.
He fought the lieutenant with the verve of an athlete fresh for the field.
It was all over. Those pirates who could, leaped over the bulwarks and swam to the shore, leaving a red trail in the water behind them.
Twilight came down on the sea. Beneath theshallow waters the bodies of the slain quivered with the motion of the waves as if they were still alive and still struggling, and among them was the headless corpse of Blackbeard.
For that terrible head was hung at the bowsprit of Maynard’s ship. All the way back to Virginia the gruesome figurehead swung and dipped and ducked with the movements of the vessel; the ocean pounded and played with it and twisted that strange beard into more fantastic shapes than Blackbeard had ever dreamed of, weaving into it the weeds and slime-flora of the sea, and for a last touch washed from their sockets the baleful eyes which glared in the fixed glassiness of death.