Howard Pyle's Book of pirates : fiction, fact & fancy concerning the buccaneers & marooners of the Spanish Main
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 divil 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]
[Footnote 2: The pirate captain had really only twenty-five men aboard
of his sloop 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