Howard Pyle's Book of pirates : fiction, fact & fancy concerning the buccaneers & marooners of the Spanish Main
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 shallow 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 wake. 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 his-self." 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 gunpowder 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