Blackbeard: Buccaneer Part 25

"I heard the tale from Hawkridge," answered the brusque but generous soldier. "The carpenter's mate has won my allegiance. What say you in your own behalf, Peter Tobey?"

The blistered, singed survivor touched a hand to his forehead and respectfully responded:

"A carpenter by trade and nature, and allus was. I never see one happy day a-piratin' nor did I shed the blood of any human creatur'. With a bench and tools, you will find me a proper handy man in Charles Town."

"That clinches it," cried Colonel Stuart. "I should call it a crime to hang an artisan like Peter Tobey. Your prize is awarded you, Hawkridge.

See that he is well cared for."

"The first booty that ever was handed me from a sinkin' ship," said Joe.

"Come along, Master Tobey, and roll into my bunk."

"Verily I was castin' bread upon the waters when I gave that cask to the wind and tide," devoutly murmured the carpenter's mate as he limped below with his new owner.

No more than a dozen other pirates were rescued alive and several of these expired soon after they were lifted aboard the brigantine. This was the only sensational incident of the coastwise voyage to the James River. Comfortably quartered, with no more work than was wholesome, Jack c.o.c.krell and Joe Hawkridge thought it a holiday excursion after their previous adventures at sea.

In the roadstead of the James were two men-of-war, small frigates flying the broad pennant of the Royal Navy. A conference was held in the cabin of the senior officer, to which Captain Wellsby and Colonel Stuart were invited. The latest advices made it seem certain that Blackbeard still lurked off the coast of the Carolinas. Planters had reported seeing his ship in Pamlico Sound and it was also learned that he had been in communication with the disloyal Governor Eden at Bath Town. A letter had been intercepted, in handwriting of the Governor's secretary, and addressed to Captain Teach, which included these words:

"_I have sent you four of your men. They are all I can meet with about town. Be upon your guard._"

This was readily construed to mean that Blackbeard was in haste to recall such of his crew as had strayed ash.o.r.e. At the council of war in the frigate's cabin, a proclamation was read. It offered a handsome reward for the capture of Captain Edward Teach, dead or alive, and lesser rewards for other pirates.

It was the decision that the two frigates were unhandy for cruising insh.o.r.e. Therefore officers and men would be chosen from them to fill the complements of two sloops, light and active craft which would be unhampered by batteries of cannon. They would be employed for boarding Blackbeard's ship while the Charles Town brigantine _King George_ should convoy them and engage in the attack if the depth of water should permit. The naval officer selected to command the sloops was Lieutenant Maynard who went off to the _King George_ to inspect her and make a call of courtesy.

He was especially cordial to Master c.o.c.krell and Gunner's Mate Joe Hawkridge, laying aside the stiff dignity of naval rank. To his persuasive argument that they enter the royal service with promise of quick promotion, they turned a deaf ear although they were wonderfully taken with him. He was a gentle, soft-spoken young man with a boyish smile who blushed when pressed to talk of his own exploits against the Spanish, the Dutch, and the French in Britannia's wooden walls. His own questions were mostly about Blackbeard's fighting quality. Would he make a stand against disciplined tars who were accustomed to close in, hammer-and-tongs? Joe Hawkridge answered to this:

"I ne'er saw him in action against a king's ship, and all his wild nonsense is apt to delude ye into thinkin' him a drunken play-actor. But you will never take him alive, so long as those bandy legs have strength to prop him up."

"I look forward to meeting him with a deal of pleasure. It may be my good fortune to measure swords with him," observed Lieutenant Maynard.

Joe Hawkridge was puzzled by this gentle fire-eater with the complexion of a girl. Nothing could have been more unlike the ramping, roaring pirates of Blackbeard's dirty crew who tried to terrify by their very appearance. After the lieutenant had returned to his frigate, Jack c.o.c.krell remarked:

"A most misleading man, Joe. You cannot picture him seeking the bubble reputation at the cannon's mouth, as Will Shakespeare saith."

"Blackbeard will bite him in two," replied Joe. "He is too pretty to be risked in such a slaughter pen. I own up to feelin' squeamish on my own account, hardy pirate though I be."

"This Lieutenant Maynard is welcome to measure swords with Blackbeard,"

said Jack, "and I shall not quarrel with him for the honor. Pick me a pirate with a wooden leg, Joe, or one that still shakes with Spanish fever."

"My only chance of getting out with a whole skin is to lug a sack of flour under one arm and play the ghost o' Jesse Strawn."

Expeditiously the brigantine and the two sloops sailed out of the James River to head for the North Carolina coast and first rake the nooks and bays of Pamlico Sound. There was no intention of offering Blackbeard fair odds in battle. With men and vessels enough it was resolved to exterminate him, like ridding a house of rats or other vermin. If he had gone out to sea, then the pursuers would wait and watch for his return to his favorite haunts in these waters. There was every reason to believe, however, that he was concealed insh.o.r.e, within easy distance of his friend Governor Eden.

Failing to find him in Pamlico Sound, it was debated whether to cruise farther to the southward. Now Master Jack c.o.c.krell and his chum had said nothing to the officers concerning the treasure in the Cherokee swamp.

They felt bound in honor not to reveal it without the consent of Bill Saxby and old Trimble Rogers who were partners in the enterprise.

Moreover, Lieutenant Maynard and the Virginia officers would feel bound to turn the treasure over to the crown or its representatives. Governor Eden of North Carolina would undoubtedly claim it as found within his territory and this meant that he would steal most of it for himself.

It thrilled the lads when Colonel Stuart told them that this Provincial squadron would cruise as far as Cherokee Inlet before working to the northward again. Information had led the officers to believe that Blackbeard had lost many men by desertion while his ship lay at Bath Town and near by. They had been roving about the plantations and making a nuisance of themselves and seemed ready to quit their red-handed despot of a master. In this event he might have sought his old hiding-place at the Inlet sooner than risk a clash with the force which had been sent after him and of which he had been warned by Governor Eden.

Lieutenant Maynard scouted in advance with the two sloops because there was small danger of their getting aground and they could be moved along with oars if the wind failed. The brigantine kept further offsh.o.r.e but within signaling distance. She was running within sight of the scattering barrier of low islands when Captain Wellsby summoned Joe Hawkridge and informed him:

"You will act as pilot, Joe, once we fetch sounding on the Twelve Fathom Bank. The chart is faulty, as ye know, and me and my mates are in strange waters with a'mighty little elbow-room. You know the marks, I take it."

"Aye, sir, I do that," answered Joe. "Then I stays aboard ship and miss the chance to go pokin' about with a cutla.s.s? I'm all screwed up to terrible deeds, Cap'n Wellsby, after a spell o' mortal fear. And who takes care of Master c.o.c.krell if he goes in a boat?"

"His own l.u.s.ty right arm, Joe. Avast with your melancholy. We must first catch this Blackbeard."

Presently Joe Hawkridge footed it up the main shrouds to scan the sea ahead and try to get a glimpse of that sandy bit of exposed shoal on which he had been marooned. This would enable him to find the entrance to the outer channel and so con the brigantine in from seaward. While he shaded his eyes with his hand against the glare of the morning sun, one of the sloops hoisted a string of bright signal flags and fired two guns. The other sloop was seen to lower her topsail and wait for the _King George_ to come up.

Joe Hawkridge climbed higher and found a perch where he could discern the spars of a vessel etched almost as fine as threads against the azure horizon. He was almost certain that the ship he saw was very close to that tiny cay of which he had such unhappy knowledge. Soon he was able to perceive that the vessel's sails were furled. This was an odd place for an anchorage. His conjecture was confirmed when the _King George_ pa.s.sed close to the nearest sloop and Lieutenant Maynard shouted:

"Stranded hard and fast! And she is deucedly like Blackbeard's brig."

Scampering to the deck, Joe Hawkridge mustered his gun's crew as Jack c.o.c.krell came running up to say:

"Trapped on the very islet where he cast you and the other pirates! His chickens have come home to roost."

"Call me no pirate or I'll stretch ye with a handspike," grinned Joe.

"'Tis a plaguey poor word in this company. Aye, Cap'n Ed'ard Teach has a taste of his own medicine and he will get a worse dose this day than ever he served me."

CHAPTER XVII

THE GREAT FIGHT OF CAPTAIN TEACH

YES, there was Blackbeard's ship hard in the sand which had gripped her keel while she was steering to enter the Cherokee Inlet. There was no pearly vapor of swamp mist out here to shroud her from attack. The air was clear and bright, with a robust breeze which stirred a flashing surf on the shoals. Under lower sails, the two sloops watchfully crept nearer until their crews could examine the stranded brig and read the story of her plight. She stood on a slant with the decks sloped toward the enemy.

This made it impossible to use her guns with any great effect.

Captain Wellsby tacked ship and kept the _King George_ well away from the cay, as Joe Hawkridge advised. With an ebbing tide, it was unsafe to venture into shallower water in order to pound Blackbeard's vessel with broadsides. Lieutenant Maynard came aboard in a small boat and was quite the dandy with his brocaded coat and ruffles and velvet small-clothes.

One might have thought he had engaged to dance the minuet. Colonel Stuart met him in a spick-and-span uniform of His Majesty's Foot, cross-belts pipe-clayed white as snow, boots polished until they shone.

Such gentlemen were punctilious in war two hundred years ago.

"Your solid shot will not pound him much at this range, my good sir,"

said the lieutenant. "With his hull so badly listed toward us, you can no more than splinter the decks while his men take shelter below."

"I grant you that," regretfully replied the soldier. "And case-shot will not scatter to do him much harm. Shall I blaze away and demoralize the rascals whilst you make ready your boats?"

"Toss a few rounds into the varlets, Colonel Stuart. It may keep them from ma.s.sing on deck. One boat from your ship, if it please you, with twenty picked men. I shall take twenty men from each sloop as boarders."

"Sixty in all?" queried the colonel. "Why not take a hundred?"

"They would be tumbling over one another,--too much confusion. This is not a large vessel yonder. We must have room on deck to swing and cut."

"I will have my men away in ten minutes, Lieutenant Maynard," crisply replied the blonde, raw-boned Scotsman with a finger at his hat-brim in courteous salute. He proceeded to call the men by name, strapping, sober fellows who had followed the sea amid the frequent perils of the merchant service. Jack c.o.c.krell was the only landsman and he felt greatly honored that he should be included. Gone was his unmanly trepidation. Was he more worthy to live than these humble seamen who fought to make the ocean safer for other voyagers, who were true kinsmen of the Elizabethan heroes of blue water? He tarried a moment to wring Joe Hawkridge's hand in farewell and to tell him:

"If I have ill luck in this adventure, old comrade,--do you mind presenting my best compliments, and--and a fond farewell to Mistress Dorothy Stuart?"