Eliza Thatch bore no resemblance to a houri; her hair was red, her face was freckled; she had enough teeth left to do good eating with when she had a chance, and her step shook the timbers of her little home.

Her father had heard from her a little while ago by a letter she had had conveyed to Belize. His parental feelings, notwithstanding he had told Bonnet he knew no such sentiments, were stirred. When he had finished her letter he would have been well pleased to burn a vessel and make a dozen passengers walk the plank as a memorial to his girl. But this not being convenient, it had come to him that he would marry the wench to the gaily bedecked young fellow he had captured, and it filled his reckless heart with a wild delight. He drew his cutlass, and with a great oath he drove the heavy blade into the top of the table, and he swore by this mark that his grand plan should be carried out.

He would sail over to England; this would be a happy chance, for his vessel was unladen and ready for any adventure. He would drop anchor in the quiet cove he knew of; he would go ashore by night; he would be at home again. To be at home again made him shout with profane laughter, the little home he remembered would be so ridiculous to him now. He would see again his poor little trembling wife—she must be gray by now—and he was sure that she would tremble more than ever she did when she heard the great sea oaths which he was accustomed to pour forth now. And his daughter, she must be a strapping wench by this time; he was sure she could stand a slap on the back which would kill her mother.

Yes, there should be a wedding, a fine wedding, and good old rum should water the earth. And he would detail a boat's crew of jolly good fellows from the Revenge to help make things uproarious. This Charter boy and Eliza should have a house of their own, with plenty of money—he had more funds in hand than ever in his life before—and his respectable son-in-law should go to London and deposit his fortune in a bank. It would be royal fun to think of him and Eliza highly respectable and with money in the bank. A quart of the best rum could scarcely have made Blackbeard more hilarious than did this glorious notion. He danced among his crew; he singed beards; he whacked with capstan bars; he pushed men down hatchways; he was in lordly spirits, and his crew expected some great adventure, some startling piece of deviltry.

Of course he did not keep his great design from Dickory—it was too glorious, too transcendent. He took his young admiral into his cabin and laid before him his dazzling future.

Dickory sat speechless, almost breathless. As he listened he could feel himself turn cold. Had any one else been talking to him in this strain he would have shouted with laughter, but people did not laugh at Blackbeard.

When the pirate had said all and was gazing triumphantly at poor Dickory, the young man gasped a word in answer; he could not accept this awful fate without as much as a wave of the hand in protest.

"But, sir," said he, "if—"

Blackbeard's face grew black; he bent his head and lowered upon the pale Dickory, then, with a tremendous blow, he brought down his fist upon the table.

"If Eliza will not have you," he roared; "if that girl will not take you when I offer you to her; if she or her mother as much as winks an eyelash in disobedience of my commands, I will take them by the hair of their heads and I will throw them into the sea. If she will not have you," he repeated, roaring as if he were shouting through a speaking trumpet in a storm, "if I thought that, youngster, I would burn the house with both of them in it, and the rum I had bought to make a jolly wedding should be poured on the timbers to make them blaze. Let no notions like that enter your mind, my boy. If she disobeys me, I will cook her and you shall eat her. Disobey me!" And he swore at such a rate that he panted for fresh air and mounted to the deck.

It was not a time for Dickory to make remarks indicating his disapproval of the proposed arrangement.

As the Revenge sailed on over sunny seas or under lowering clouds, Dickory was no stranger to the binnacle, and the compass always told him that they were sailing eastward. He had once asked Blackbeard where they now were by the chart, but that gracious gentleman of the midnight beard had given him oaths for answers, and had told him that if the captain knew where the ship was on any particular hour or minute nobody else on that ship need trouble his head about it. But at last the course of the Revenge was changed a little, and she sailed northward. Then Dickory spoke with one of the mildest of the mates upon the subject of their progress, and the man made known to him that they were now about half-way through the Windward passage. Dickory started back. He knew something of the geography of those seas.

"Why, then," he cried, "we have passed Jamaica!"

"Of course we have," said the man, and if it had not been for Dickory's uniform he would have sworn at him.



CHAPTER XXII

BLADE TO BLADE

When the corvette Badger sailed from Jamaica she moved among the islands of the Caribbean Sea as if she had been a modern vessel propelled by a steam-engine. That which represented a steam-engine in this case was the fiery brain of Captain Christopher Vince of his Majesty's navy. More than winds, more than currents, this brain made its power felt upon the course and progress of the vessel.

Calling at every port where information might possibly be gained, hailing every sloop or ship or fishing-smack which might have sighted the pirate ship Revenge, with a constant lookout for a black flag, Captain Vince kept his engine steadily at work.

But it was not in pursuit of a ship that the swift keel of the Badger cut through the sea, this way and that, now on a long course, now doubling back again, like a hound fancying he has got the scent of a hare, then raging wildly when he finds the scent is false; it was in pursuit of a woman that every sail was spread, that the lookout swept the sea, and that the hot brain of the captain worked steadily and hard. This English man-of-war was on a cruise to make Kate Bonnet the bride of its captain. The heart of this naval lover was very steady; it was fixed in its purpose, nothing could turn it aside. Vince's plans were well-digested; he knew what he wanted to do, he knew how he was going to do it.

In the first place he would capture the man Bonnet; all the details of the action were arranged to that end; then, with Kate's father as his prisoner, he would be master of the situation.

There was nothing noble about this craftily elaborated design; but, then, there was nothing noble about Captain Vince. He was a strong hater and a strong lover, and whether he hated or loved, nothing, good or bad, must stand in his way. With the life or death, the misery or the happiness of the father in his hands, he knew that he need but beckon to the daughter. She might come slowly, but she would come. She was a grand woman, but she was a woman; she might resist the warm plea of love, but she could not resist the cold commands of that cruel figure of death who stood behind the lover.

Captain Bonnet was returning from his visit to the New England coast, picking up bits of profit here and there as fortune befell him, when Captain Vince first heard that the Revenge had gone northward. The news was circumstantial and straightforward, and was not to be doubted. Vince raged upon his quarter-deck when he found out how he had been wasting time. Northward now was pointed the bow of the Badger, and the vengeful Vince felt as if his prey was already in his hands. If Bonnet had sailed up the Atlantic coast he was bound to sail down again. It might be a long cruise, there might be impatient waitings at the mouths of coves and rivers where the pirates were accustomed to take refuge or refit, but the light of the eyes of Kate Bonnet were worth the longest pursuit or the most impatient waiting.

So, steadily sailed the corvette Badger up the long Atlantic coast, and she passed the capes of the Delaware while Captain Bonnet was examining the queer pulpit in the little bay-side town where his ship had stopped to take in water.

At the various ports of the northern coast where the Revenge had sailed back and forth outside, the Badger boldly entered, and the tales she heard soon turned her back again to sail southward down the long Atlantic coast. But the heart of Christopher Vince never failed. The vision of Kate Bonnet as he had seen her, standing with glorious eyes denouncing him; as he should see her when, with bowed head and proffered hand, she came to him; as all should see her when, in her clear-cut beauty, she stood beside him in his ancestral home, never left him.

Off the port of Charles Town, South Carolina, the Badger lay and waited, and soon, from an outgoing bark, the news came to Captain Vince that several weeks before the pirate Bonnet of the Revenge had taken an English ship as she was entering port, and had then sailed southward. Southward now sailed the Badger, and, as there was but little wind, Captain Vince swore with an unremitting diligence.

It was a quiet morning and the Badger was nearing the straits of Florida when a sail was reported almost due south.

Up came Captain Vince with his glass, and after a long, long look, and another, and another, during which the two vessels came slowly nearer and nearer each other, the captain turned to his first officer and said quietly: "She flies the skull and bones. She's the first of those hellish pirates that we have yet met on this most unlucky cruise."

"If we could send her, with her crew on board, ten times to the bottom," said the other, "she would not pay us what her vile fraternity has cost us. But these pirate craft know well the difference between a Spanish galleon and a British man-of-war, and they will always give us a wide berth."

"But this one will not," said the captain.

Then again he looked long and earnestly through his glass. "Send aft the three men who know the Revenge," said he.

Presently the men came aft, and one by one they went aloft, and soon came the report, vouched for by each of them:

"The sail ahead is the pirate Revenge."

Now all redness left the face of Captain Vince. He was as pale as if he had been afraid that the pirate ship would capture him, but every man on his vessel knew that there was no fear in the soul or the body of the captain of the Badger. Quickly came his orders, clear and sharp; everything had been gone over before, but everything was gone over again. The corvette was to bear down upon the pirate, her cannon—great guns for those days, and which could soon have disabled, if they had not sunk, the smaller vessel—were muzzled and told to hold their peace. The man-of-war was to bear down upon the pirate and to capture her by boarding. There was to be no broadside, no timber-splitting cannon balls.

The wind was light and in favour of the corvette, and slowly the two vessels diminished the few miles between them; but there was enough wind to show the royal colours on the Badger.

"He is a bold fellow, that pirate," said some of the naval men, "and he will wait and fight us."

"He will wait and fight us," said some of the others, "because he cannot get away; in this wind he is at our mercy."

Captain Vince stood and gazed over the water, sometimes with his glass and sometimes without it. Here now was the end of his fuming, his raging, his long and untiring search. All the anxious weariness of long voyaging, all the impatience of watching, all the irritation of waiting had gone. The notorious vessel in which the father of Kate Bonnet had made himself a terror and a scourge was now almost within his reach. The beneficent vessel by which the father of Kate Bonnet should give to him his life's desire was so near to him that he could have sent a musket ball into her had he chosen to fire. It was so near to him that he could now, with his glass, read the word "Revenge" on her bow. His brows were knit, his jaws were set tight, his muscles hardened themselves with energy.

Again the orders were passed, that when the men of the corvette boarded the pirate they were to cut down the rascals without mercy, and not one of them was to draw sword or pistol against the pirate captain. He would be attended to by their commander.

Vince knew the story of Stede Bonnet; he knew that early in life he had been in the army, and that it was likely that he understood the handling of a sword. But he knew also that he himself was one of the best swordsmen in the royal navy. He yearned to cross blades with the man whose blood should not be shed, whose life should be preserved throughout the combat as if he were a friend and not a foe, who should surrender to him his sword and give to him his daughter.

"They're a brave lot, those bloody rascals," said one of the men of the Badger.

"They've a fool of a captain," said another; "he knows not the difference between a British man-of-war and a Spanish galleon, but we shall teach him that."

Slowly they came together, the Revenge and the Badger, the bow of one pointed east and the bow of the other to the west; from neither vessel there came a word; the low waves could be heard flapping against their sides. Suddenly there rang out from the man-of-war the order to make fast. The grapnels flew over the bulwarks of the pirate, and in a moment the two vessels were as one. Then, with a great shout, the men of the Badger leaped and hurled themselves upon the deck of the Revenge, and upon that deck and from behind bulwarks there rose, yelling and howling and roaring, the picked men of two pirate crews, quick, furious, and strong as tigers, the hate of man in their eyes and the love of blood in their hearts. Like a wave of massacre they threw themselves against the drilled masses of the Badger's crew, and with yells and oaths and curses and cries the battle raged.

With a sudden dash the captain of the man-of-war plunged through the ranks of the combatants and stood upon the middle of the deck; his quick eyes shot here and there; wherever he might be, he sought the captain of the pirate ship. In an instant a huge man bounded aft and made one long step towards him. Vast in chest and shoulder, and with mighty limbs, fiery-eyed, hairy, horribly fantastic, Blackbeard stood, with great head lowered for the charge.

"A sugar-planter?" was the swift thought of Vince.

"Are you the captain of this ship?" he shouted.

"I am!" cried the other, and with a curse like bursting thunder the pirate came on and his blade crossed that of Captain Vince.

Forward and amidships surged the general fight: men plunged, swords fell, blood flowed, feet slipped upon the deck, and roars of blasphemy and pain rose above the noise of battle. But farther aft the two captains, in a space by themselves, cut, thrust, and trampled, whirling around each other, dashing from this side and that, ever with keen eyes firmly fixed, ever with strong arms whirling down and upward; now one man felt the keen cut of steel and now the other. The blood ran upon rich uniform or stained rough cloth and leather. It was a fight as if between a lioness and a tigress, their dead cubs near-by.

As most men in the navy knew, Captain Vince was a most dangerous swordsman. In duel or in warfare, no man yet had been able to stand before him. With skilled arm and eye and with every muscle of his body trained, his sword sought a vital spot in his opponent. There was no thought now in the mind of Vince about disarming the pirate and taking him prisoner; this terrible wild beast, this hairy monster must be killed or he himself must die. Through the whirl and clash and hot breath of battle he had been amazed that Kate Bonnet's father should be a man like this.

The pirate, his eyes now shrunken into his head, where they glowed like coals, his breath steaming like a volcano, and his tremendous muscles supple and quick as those of a cat, met his antagonist at every point, and with every lunge and thrust and cut forced him to guard.

Now Vince shut himself in his armour of trained defence; this bounding lion must be killed, but the death-stroke must be cunningly delivered, and until, in his hot rage, the pirate should forget his guard Vince must shield himself.

Never had the great Blackbeard met so keen a swordsman; he howled with rage to see the English captain still vigorous, agile, warding every stroke. Blackbeard was now a wild beast of the sea: he fought to kill, for naught else, not even his own life. With a yell he threw himself upon Captain Vince, whose sword passed quick as lightning through the brawny masses of his left shoulder. With one quick step, the pirate pressed closer to Vince, thus holding the imprisoned blade, which stuck out behind his body, and with a tremendous blow of his right fist, in which he held the heavy brazen hilt of his sword, he dashed his enemy backward to the ground. The fall drew the blade from the shoulder of Blackbeard, whose great right arm went up, whose sword hissed in the air and then came down upon the prostrate Vince. Another stroke and the English captain lay insensible and still.

With the scream of a maddened Indian, Blackbeard sprung into the air, and when his feet touched the deck he danced. He would have hewn his victim into pieces, he would have scattered him over the decks, but there was no time for such recreations. Forward the battle raged with tremendous fury, and into the midst of it dashed Blackbeard.

From the companion-way leading to the captain's cabin there now appeared a pale young face. It was that of Dickory Charter, who had been ordered by Blackbeard, before the two vessels came together, to shut himself in the cabin and to keep out of the broil, swearing that if he made himself unfit to present to Eliza he would toss his disfigured body into the sea. Entirely unarmed and having no place in the fight, Dickory had obeyed, but the spirit of a young man which burned within him led him to behold the greater part of the conflict between Blackbeard and the English captain. Being a young man, he had shut his eyes at the end of it, but when the pirate had left he came forth quietly. The fight raged forward, and here he was alone with the fallen figure on the deck.

As Dickory stood gazing downward in awe—in all his life he had never seen a corpse—the man he had supposed dead opened his eyes for a moment and gazed with dull intelligence, and then he gasped for rum. Dickory was quickly beside him with a tumbler of spirits and water, which, raising the fallen man's head, he gave him. In a few moments the eyes of Captain Vince opened wider, and he stared at the young man in naval uniform who stood above him. "Who are you?" he said in a low voice, but distinct, "an English officer?"

"No," said Dickory, "I am no officer and no pirate; I am forced to wear these clothes."

And then, his natural and selfish instincts pushing themselves before anything else, Dickory went on: "Oh, sir, if your men conquer these pirates will you take me—" but as he spoke he saw that the wounded man was not listening to him; his half-closed eyes turned towards him and he whispered:

"More spirits!"



Dickory dashed into the cabin, half-filled a tumbler with rum and gave it to Vince. Presently his eyes recovered something of their natural glow, and with contracted brow he fixed them upon the stream of blood which was running from him over the deck.

Suddenly he spoke sharply: "Young fellow," he said, "some paper and a pen, a pencil, anything. Quick!"

Dickory looked at him in amazement for a moment and then he ran into the cabin, soon returning with a sheet of paper and an English pencil.

The eyes of Captain Vince were now very bright, and a nervous strength came into his body. He raised himself upon his elbow, he clutched at the paper, and clapping it upon the deck began to write. Quickly his pencil moved; already he was feeling that his rum-given strength was leaving him, but several pages he wrote, and then he signed his name. Folding the sheet he stopped for a moment, feeling that he could do no more; but, gathering together his strength in one convulsive motion, he addressed the letter.

"Take that," he feebly said, "and swear ... that it shall be ... delivered."

"I swear," said Dickory, as on his knees he took the blood-smeared letter. He hastily slipped it into the breast of his coat, and then he was barely able to move quick enough to keep the Englishman's head from striking the deck.

"How now!" sounded a harsh growl at his ear. "Get you into your cabin or you will be hurt. It is not time yet for the fleecing of corpses! I am choking for a glass of brandy. Get in and stay there!"

In another minute Blackbeard, refreshed, was running aft, the cut through his shoulder bleeding, but entirely forgotten.

There was no fighting now upon the deck of the Revenge; the conflict raged, but it had been transferred to the Badger. The sailors of the man-of-war had fought valiantly and stoutly, even impetuously, but their enemies—picked men from two pirate crews—had fought like wire-muscled devils. Ablaze with fury they had cut down the Badger's men, piling them upon their own fallen comrades; they had followed the brave fellows with oaths, cutlasses, and pistols as, little at a time and fighting all the while, they slowly clambered back into their own ship. The pirates had thrown their grapnels over the bulwarks of the man-of-war; they had followed, cut by cut, shot by shot, until they now stood upon the Badger, fighting with the same fury that they had just fought upon the blood-soaked Revenge. Blackbeard was not yet with them—whatever happened, Blackbeard must be refreshed—but now he sprang into the enemy's ship—that fine British man-of-war, the corvette Badger, which had so bravely sailed down upon his ship to capture her—and led the carnage.

They were tough men, those British seamen, tough in heart, tough in arms and body; they fought above decks and they fought below, and they laid many a pirate scoundrel dead; but they had met a foe which was too strong for them—a pack of brawny, hairy desperadoes, picked from two pirate crews. The first officer now commanding, panting, bleeding, and torn, groaned as he saw that his men could fight no longer, and he surrendered the Badger to the pirates.

The great Blackbeard yelled with delight. When had any other captain sailing under the Jolly Roger captured a British man-of-war, a first-class corvette of the royal navy? His frenzied joy was so intense that he was on the point of cutting down the officer who was offering him his sword, but he withheld his hand.

"Go, somebody, and fetch me a glass of his Majesty's rum," he cried, "and I will drink to his perdition!"

The door of a locker was smashed, the spirits were brought, and the great Blackbeard was again refreshed.

Standing on the quarter-deck where but an hour or two before Captain Christopher Vince had stood commanding his fine corvette as she sailed down upon her pirate enemy, Blackbeard had brought before him all the survivors of the Badger's crew.

"Well, you're a lot of damnable knaves," said he, "and you have cost me many a good man this day. But my crew will now be short-handed, and if any or all of you will turn pirate and ship with me, I will let bygones pass; but, if any of you choose not that, overboard you go. I will have no unwilling rascals in my crew."

All but one of the men of the Badger, downcast, wounded, panting with thirst and loving life, agreed to become pirates and to ship on board the Revenge.

The first mate would not break his oath of allegiance to the king, and he went overboard.



CHAPTER XXIII

THE ADDRESS OF THE LETTER

There was hard and ghastly work that day when the Revenge was cleared after action, and there was lively and interesting work on board the Badger when Blackbeard and his officers went over the captured vessel to discover what new possessions they had won.

At first Blackbeard had thought to establish himself upon the corvette and abandon the Revenge. It would have been such a grand thing to scourge the seas in a British man-of-war with the Jolly Roger floating over her. But this would have been too dangerous; the combined naval force of England in American waters would have been united to put down such presumption. So the wary pirate curbed his ambition.

Everything portable and valuable was stripped from the Badger—her guns would have been taken had it been practicable to ship them to the Revenge in a rising sea—and then she was scuttled, fired, and cast off, and with her dead on board she passed out of commission in the royal navy.

During the turmoil, the horror and the bringing aboard of pillage, Dickory Charter had kept close below deck, his face in his hands and his heart almost broken. It is so easy for young hearts to almost break.

When he had seen the British ship come sailing down upon them, hope had sprung up brightly in his heart; now there was a chance of his escaping from this hell of the waves. When the Revenge should be taken he would rush to the British captain, or any one in authority, and tell his tale. It would be believed, he doubted not; even his uniform would help to prove he was no pirate; he would be taken away, he would reach Jamaica; he would see Kate; he would carry to her the great news of her father. After that his life could take care of itself.

But now the blackness of darkness was over everything. Those who were to have been his friends had vanished, the ship which was to have given him a new life had disappeared forever. He was on board the pirate ship, bound for the shores of England—horrible shores to him—bound to the shores of England and to Blackbeard's Eliza!

He was not a fool, this Dickory; he had no unwarrantable and romantic fears that in these enlightened days one man could say to another, "Go you, and marry the woman I have chosen for you." There was nothing silly or cowardly about him, but he knew Blackbeard.

Not one ray of hope thrust itself through his hands into his brain. Hope had gone, gone to the bottom, and he was on his storm-tossed way to the waters of another continent.

But in the midst of his despair Dickory never thought of freeing himself, by a sudden bound, of the world and his woes. So long as Kate should live he must live, even if it were to prove to himself, and to himself only, how faithful to her he could be.

It was dark when men came tumbling below, throwing themselves into hammocks and bunks, and Dickory prepared to turn in. If sleep should come and without dreams, it would be greater gain than bags of gold. As he took off his coat, the letter of the English captain dropped from his breast. Until then he had forgotten it, but now he remembered it as a sacred trust. The dull light of the lantern barely enabled him to discern objects about him, but he stuck the letter into a crack in the woodwork where in the morning he would see it and take proper care of it.

Soon sleep came, but not without dreams. He dreamed that he was rowing Kate on the river at Bridgetown, and that she told him in a low sweet voice, with a smile on her lips and her eyes tenderly upturned, that she would like to row thus with him forever.

Early in the morning, through an open port-hole, the light of the eastern sun stole into this abode of darkness and sin and threw itself upon the red-stained letter sticking in the crack of the woodwork. Presently Dickory opened his eyes, and the first thing they fell upon was that letter. On the side of the folded sheet he could see the superscription, boldly but irregularly written: "Miss Kate Bonnet, Kingston, Ja."

Dickory sat upright, his eyes hard-fixed and burning. How long he sat he knew not. How long his brain burned inwardly, as his eyes burned outwardly, he knew not. The noise of the watch going on deck roused him, and in a moment he had the letter in his hands.

All that day Dickory Charter was worth nothing to anybody. Blackbeard swore at him and pushed him aside. The young fellow could not even count the doubloons in a bag.

"Go to!" cried the pirate, blacker and more fantastically horrible than ever, for his bare left shoulder was bound with a scarf of silk and his great arm was streaked and bedabbled with his blood, "you are the most cursed coward I have met with in all my days at sea. So frightened out of your wits by a lively brush as that of yesterday! Too scared to count gold! Never saw I that before. One might be too scared to pray, but to count gold! Ha! ha!" and the bold pirate laughed a merry roar. He was in good spirits; he had captured and sunk an English man-of-war; sunk her with her English ensign floating above her. How it would have overjoyed him if all the ships, little and big, that plied the Spanish Main could have seen him sink that man-of-war. He was a merry man that morning, the great Blackbeard, triumphant in victory, glowing with the king's brandy, and with so little pain from that cut in his shoulder that he could waste no thought upon it.

"But Eliza will like it well," continued the merry pirate; "she will lead you with a string, be you bold or craven, and the less you pull at it the easier it will be for my brave girl. Ah! she will dance with joy when I tell her what a frightened rabbit of a husband it is that I give her. Now get away somewhere, and let your face rid itself of its paleness; and should you find a dead man lying where he has been overlooked, come and tell me and I will have him put aside. You must not be frightened any more or Eliza may find that you have not left even the spirit of a rabbit."

All day Dickory sat silent, his misery pinned into the breast of his coat. "Miss Kate Bonnet, Kingston, Ja."—and this on a letter written in the dying moments of an English captain, a high and mighty captain who must have loved as few men love, to write that letter, his life's blood running over the paper as he wrote. And could a man love thus if he were not loved? That was the terrible question.

Sometimes his mind became quiet enough for him to think coherently, then it was easy enough for him to understand everything. Kate had been a long time in Jamaica; she had met many people; she had met this man, this noble, handsome man. Dickory had watched him with glowing admiration as he stood up before Blackbeard, fighting like the champion of all good against the hairy monster who struck his blows for all that was base and wicked.

How Dickory's young heart had gone out in sympathy and fellowship towards the brave English captain! How he had hoped that the next of his quick, sharp lunges might slit the black heart of the pirate! How he had almost wept when the noble Englishman went down! And now it made him shudder to think his heart had stood side by side with the heart of Kate's lover! He had sworn to deliver the letter of that lover, and he would do it. More cruel than the bloodiest pirate was the fate that forced him thus to bear the death-warrant of his own young life.



CHAPTER XXIV

BELIZE

There were not many captains of merchantmen in the early part of the eighteenth century who cared to sail into the Gulf of Honduras, that body of water being such a favourite resort of pirates.

But no such fears troubled the mind of the skipper of the brig Belinda, which was now making the best of her way towards the port of Belize. She was a sturdy vessel and carried no prejudices. Sometimes she was laden with goods bought from the pirates and destined to be sold to honest people; and, again, she carried commodities purchased from those who were their legal owners and intended for the use of the bold rascals who sailed under the Jolly Roger. Then, as now, it was impossible for thieves to steal all the commodities they desired; some things must be bought. Thus, serving the pirates as well as honest traders, the sloop Belinda feared not to sail the Gulf of Honduras or to cast anchor by the town of Belize.

As the good ship approached her port Kate Bonnet kept steadfastly on deck during most of the daylight, her eyes searching the surface of the water for something which looked like her father's ship, the Revenge. True, Mr. Newcombe had written her that Major Bonnet had given up piracy and was now engaged in commercial business in the town, but still, if she should see the Revenge, the sight would be of absorbing interest to her. She was a girl of quick observation and good memory, but the town came in view and she had seen no vessel which reminded her of the Revenge.

As soon as the anchor was dropped, Kate wished to go on shore, but her uncle would not hear of that. He must know something definite before he trusted Kate or himself in such a lawless town as Belize. The captain, who was going ashore, could make inquiries, and Kate must wait.

In a little room at the back of a large, low storehouse, not far from the pier, sat Stede Bonnet and his faithful friend and servitor, Ben Greenway. The storehouse was crowded with goods of almost every imaginable description, and even the room back of it contained an overflow of bales, boxes, and barrels. At a small table near a window sat the Scotchman and Bonnet, the latter reading from some roughly written lists descriptions and quantities of goods, the value of each item being estimated by the canny Scotchman, who set down the figures upon another list. Presently Bonnet put down his papers and heaved a heavy sigh, which sigh seemed to harmonize very well with his general appearance. He carried no longer upon him the countenance of the bold officer who, in uniform and flowing feather, trod the quarter-deck of the Revenge, but bore the expression of a man who knew adversity, yet was not able to humble himself under it. He was bent and borne down, although not yet broken. Had he been broken he could better have accommodated himself to his present case. His clothes were those of the common class of civilian, and there was that about him which indicated that he cared no more for neatness or good looks.

"Ben Greenway," he said, "this is too much! Now have I reached the depth in my sorrow at which all my strength leaves me. I cannot read these lists."

The Scotchman looked up. "Is there no' light enow!" he asked.

"Light!" said Bonnet; "there is no light anywhere; all is murkiness and gloom. The goods which you have been lately estimating are all my own, taken from my own ship by that arch traitor and chief devil, Blackbeard. I have read the names of them to you and I have remembered many of them and I have not weakened, but now comes a task which is too great for me. These things which follow were all intended for my daughter Kate. Silks and satins and cloth of gold, ribbons and fine linen, laces and ornaments, all these I selected for my dear daughter, and by day and by night I have thought of her apparelled in fine raiment, more richly dressed than any lady in Barbadoes. My daughter, my beautiful, my proud Kate! And now what has it all come to? All these are gone, basely stolen from me by that Blackbeard."

Ben Greenway looked up. "Wha stole from ye," he said, "what ye had already stolen from its rightful owners. An' think ye," he continued, "that your honest daughter Kate would deign to array hersel' in stolen goods, no matter how rich they might happen to be! An' think ye she could hold up her head if the good people o' Bridgetown could point at her an' say, 'Look at the thief's daughter; how fine she is!' An' think ye that Mr. Martin Newcombe would tak' into his house an' hame a wife wha hadna come honestly by her clothes! I tell ye, Master Bonnet, that ye should exalt your soul in thankfulness that ye are no longer a dishonest mon, an' that whatever raiment your daughter may now wear, no' a sleeve or button o' it was purloined an' stolen by her father."

"Ben Greenway," exclaimed Bonnet, striking his hand upon the table, "you will drive me so mad that I cannot read writing! These things are bad enough, and you need not make them worse."

"Bless Heaven," said the Scotchman, "your conscience is wakin', an' the time may come, if it is kept workin', when ye will forget your plunder an' your blude, your wicked vanity, your cruelty an' your dishonesty, an' mak' yoursel' worthy o' a good daughter an' a quiet hame. An' more than that, I will tak' leave to add, o' the faithful services o' a steadfast friend."

"I cannot forget them, Ben," said Bonnet, speaking without anger. "The more you talk about my sins the more I long to do them all over again; the more you say about my vanity and pride, the more I yearn to wear my uniform and wave my naked sword. Ay, to bring it down with blood upon its blade. I am very wicked, Greenway; you never would admit it and you do not admit it now, but I am wicked, and I could prove it to you if fortune would give me opportunity." And Captain Bonnet sat up very straight in his chair and his eyes flashed as they very often had flashed as he trod the deck of the Revenge.

At this moment there was a knock at the door and the captain of the Belinda came in.

"Good-day, sir!" said that burly seaman. "And this is Captain Bonnet, I am sure, for I have seen him before, though garbed in another fashion, and I come to bring you news. I have just arrived at this port in my sloop, and I bring with me from Kingston your daughter, Mistress Kate Bonnet, her uncle, Mr. Delaplaine, and a good dame named Charter."

Stede Bonnet turned pale as he had never turned pale before.

"My daughter!" he gasped. "My daughter Kate?"

"Yes," said the captain; "she is on my ship, yearning and moaning to see you."

"From Kingston?" murmured Bonnet.

"Yes," said the other, "and on fire to see you since she heard you were here."

"Master Bonnet," exclaimed Ben Greenway, rising, "we must hasten to that vessel; perhaps this good captain will now tak' us there in his boat."

Bonnet fixed his eyes upon the floor. "Ben Greenway," he said, "I cannot. How I have longed to see my daughter, and how, time and again and time and again, I have pictured our meeting! I have seen her throw herself into the arms of that noble officer, her father; I have heard her, bathed in filial tears, forgive me everything because of the proud joy with which she looked on me and knew I was her father. Greenway, I cannot go; I have dropped too low, and I am ashamed to meet her."

"Ashamed that ye are honest?" cried the Scotchman. "Ashamed that sin nae longer besets ye, an' that ye are lifted above the thief an' the cutpurse! Master Bonnet, Master Bonnet, in good truth I am ashamed o' ye."

"Very well," said the captain of the Belinda, "I have no time to waste; if you will not go to her, she e'en must come to you. I will send my boat for her and the others, and you shall wait for them here."

"I will not wait!" exclaimed Bonnet. "I don't dare to look into her eyes. Behold these clothes, consider my mean employment. Shall I abash myself before my daughter?"

"Master Bonnet," exclaimed Greenway, hastily stepping to the doorway through which the captain had departed, "ye shallna tie yoursel' to the skirts o' the de'il; ye shallna run awa' an' hide yoursel' from your daughter wha seeks, in tears an' groans, for her unworthy father. Sit down, Master Bonnet, an' wait here until your good daughter comes."

The Belinda's captain had intended to send his boat back to his vessel, but now he determined to take her himself. This was such a strange situation that it might need explanation.

Kate screamed when he made known his errand. "What!" she cried, "my father in the town, and did he not come back with you? Is he sick? Is he wounded? Is he in chains?"

"And my Dickory," cried Dame Charter, "was he not there? Has he not yet returned to the town? It must now be a long time since he went away."

"I know not anything more than I have told you," said the captain. "And if Mr. Delaplaine and the two ladies will get into my boat, I will quickly take you to the town and show you where you may find Captain Bonnet and learn all you wish to know."

"And Dickory," cried Dame Charter, "my son Dickory! Did they give you no news of him?"

"Come along, come along," said the captain, "my men are waiting in the boat. I asked no questions, but in ten minutes you can ask a hundred if you like."

When the little party reached the town it attracted a great deal of attention from the rough roisterers who were strolling about or gambling in shady places. When the captain of the Belinda mentioned, here and there, that these newcomers were the family of Blackbeard's factor, who now had charge of that pirate's interests in the town, no one dared to treat the elderly gentleman, the pretty young lady, or the rotund dame with the slightest disrespect. The name of the great pirate was a safe protection even when he who bore it was leagues and leagues away.

At the door of the storehouse Ben Greenway stood waiting. He would have hurried down to the pier had it not been that he was afraid to leave Bonnet; afraid that this shamefaced ex-pirate would have hurried away to hide himself from his daughter and his friends. Kate, running forward, grasped the Scotchman by both hands.

"And where is he?" she cried.

"He is in there," said Ben, pointing through the storeroom to the open door at the back. In an instant she was gone.

"And Dickory?" cried Dame Charter. "Oh, Ben Greenway, tell me of my boy."

They went inside and Greenway told everything he knew, which was very much, although it was not enough to comfort the poor mother's heart, who could not readily believe that because Dickory had sailed away with a great and powerful pirate, that eminent man would be sure to bring him back in safety; but as Greenway really believed this, his words made some impression on the good dame's heart. She could see some reason to believe that Blackbeard, having now so much property in the town, might make a short cruise this time, and that any day the Revenge, with her dear son on board, might come sailing into port.

With his face buried in his folded arms, which rested on the table, Stede Bonnet received his daughter. At first she did not recognise him, never having seen him in such mean apparel; but when he raised his head, she knew her father. Closing the door behind her, she folded him in her arms. After a little, leaving the window, they sat together upon a bale of goods, which happened to be a rug from the Orient, of wondrous richness, which Bonnet had reserved for the floor of his daughter's room.

"Never, my dear," he said, "did I dream you would see me in such plight. I blush that you should look at me."

"Blush!" she exclaimed, her own cheeks reddening, "and you an honest man and no longer a freebooter and rover of the sea? My heart swells with pride to think that your life is so changed."

Bonnet sadly shook his head.

"Ah!" he said, "you don't know, you cannot understand what I feel. Kate," he exclaimed with sudden energy, "I was a man among men; a chief over many. I was powerful, I was obeyed on every side. I looked the bold captain that I was; my brave uniform and my sword betokened the rank I held. And, Kate, you can never know the pride and exultation with which I stood upon my quarter-deck and scanned the sea, master of all that might come within my vision. How my heart would swell and my blood run wild when I beheld in the distance a proud ship, her sails all spread, her colours flying, heavily laden, hastening onward to her port. How I would stretch out my arm to that proud ship and say: 'Let down those sails, drop all those flaunting flags, for you are mine; I am greater than your captain or your king! If I give the command, down you go to the bottom with all your people, all your goods, all your banners and emblazonments, down to the bottom, never to be seen again!'"



Kate shuddered and began to cry. "Oh, father!" she exclaimed, "don't say that. Surely you never did such things as that?"

"No," said he, speaking more quietly, "not just like that, but I could have done it all had it pleased me, and it was this sense of power that made my heart beat so proudly. I took no life, Kate, if it could be helped, and when I had stripped a ship of her goods, I put her people upon shore before I burned her."

Kate bowed her head in her hands. "And of all this you are proud, my father, you are proud of it!"

"Indeed am I, daughter," said he; "and had you seen me in my glory you would have been proud of me. Perhaps yet—"

In an instant she had clapped her hand over his mouth. "You shall not say it!" she exclaimed. "I have seized upon you and I shall hold you. No more freebooter's life for you; no more blood, no more fire. I shall take you away with me. Not to Bridgetown, for there is no happiness for either of us there, but to Spanish Town. There, with my uncle, we shall all be happy together. You will forget the sea and its ships; you will again wander over your fields, and I shall be with you. You shall watch the waving crops; you shall ride with me, as you used to ride, to view your vast herds of cattle—those splendid creatures, their great heads uplifted, their nostrils to the breeze."

"Truly, my Kate," said Bonnet, "that was a great sight; there were no cattle finer on the island than were mine."

"And so shall they be again, my father," said Kate, her arms around his neck.

It was then that Ben Greenway knocked upon the door.

Stede Bonnet's mind had been so much excited by what he had been talking about that he saluted his brother-in-law and Dame Charter without once thinking of his clothes. They looked upon him as if he were some unknown foreigner, a person entirely removed from their customary sphere.

"Was this the once respectable Stede Bonnet?" asked Dame Charter to herself. "Did such a man marry my sister!" thought Mr. Delaplaine. They might have been surprised had they met him as a pirate, but his appearance as a pirate's clerk amazed them.

Towards the end of the day Mr. Delaplaine and his party returned to the Belinda, for there was no fit place for them to lodge in the town. Although urged by all, Stede Bonnet would not accompany them. When persuasion had been exhausted, Ben Greenway promised Kate that he would be responsible for her father's appearance the next day, feeling safe in so doing; for, even should Bonnet's shame return, there was no likely way in which he could avoid his friends.



CHAPTER XXV

WISE MR. DELAPLAINE

Early in the next forenoon Kate and her companions prepared to make another visit to the town. Naturally she wanted to be with her father as much as possible and to exert upon him such influences as might make him forget, in a degree, the so-called glories of his pirate life and return with her and her uncle to Spanish Town, where, she believed, this misguided man might yet surrender himself to the rural joys of other days. Nay, more, he and she might hope for still further happiness in a Jamaica home, for Madam Bonnet would not be there.

As she came up from below, impatient to depart, Kate noticed, getting over the side, a gentleman who had just arrived in a small boat. He was tall and good-looking, and very handsomely attired in a rich suit such as was worn at that day by French and Spanish noblemen. A sword with an elaborate hilt was by his side, and on his head a high cocked hat. There was fine lace at his wrists and bosom, and he wore silk stockings, and silver buckles on his shoes.

Kate started at meeting here a stranger, and in such an elaborate attire. She had read of the rich dress of men of rank in Europe, but her eyes had never fallen upon such a costume. The gentleman advanced quickly towards her, holding out his hand. She shrank back. "What did it mean?"

Then in a second she saw her father's face. This fine gentleman, this dignified and graceful man, was indeed Stede Bonnet.

He had been so thoroughly ashamed of his mean attire on the preceding day that he had determined not again to meet his daughter and Mr. Delaplaine in such vulgar guise. So, from the resources of the storehouses he had drawn forth a superb suit of clothes sent westward for the governor of one of the French colonies. He excused himself for taking it from Blackbeard's treasure-house, not only on account of the demands of the emergency, but because he himself had taken it before from a merchantman.

"Father!" cried Kate, "what has happened to you? I never saw such a fine gentleman."

Bonnet smiled with complacency, and removed his cocked hat.

"I always endeavour, my dear," said he, "to dress myself according to my station. Yesterday, not expecting to see you, I was in a sad plight. I would have preferred you to meet me in my naval uniform, but as that is now, to say the least, inconvenient, and as I reside on shore in the capacity of a merchant or business man, I attire myself to suit my present condition. Ah! my good brother-in-law, I am glad to see you. I may remark," he added, graciously shaking hands with Dame Charter, "that I left my faithful Scotchman in our storehouse in the town, it being necessary for some one to attend to our possessions there. Otherwise I should have brought him with me, my good Dame Charter, for I am sure you would have found his company acceptable. He is a faithful man and an honest one, although I am bound to say that if he were less of a Presbyterian and more of a man of the world his conversation might sometimes be more agreeable."

Mr. Delaplaine regarded with much earnestness and no little pleasure his transformed brother-in-law. Hope for the future now filled his heart. If this crack-brained sugar-planter had really recovered from his mania for piracy and had a fancy for legitimate business, his new station might be better for him than any he had yet known. Sugar-planting was all well enough and suitable to any gentleman, provided Madam Bonnet were not taken with it. She would drive any man from the paths of reason unless he possessed an uncommonly strong brain, and he did not believe that such a brain was possessed by his brother-in-law Bonnet. The good Mr. Delaplaine rubbed his hands together in his satisfaction. Such a gentleman as this would be welcome in his counting-house, even if he did but little; his very appearance would reflect credit upon the establishment. Dame Charter kept in the background; she had never been accustomed to associate with the aristocracy, but she did not forget that a cat may look at a king, and her eyes were very good.

"There were always little cracks in his skull," she said to herself. "My husband used to tell me that. Major Bonnet is quick at changing from one thing to another, and it needs sharp wits to follow him."

After a time Major Bonnet proposed a row upon the harbour—he had brought a large boat, with four oarsmen, for this purpose. Mr. Delaplaine objected a little to this, fearing the presence of so many pirate vessels, but Bonnet loftily set aside such puerile objections.

"I am the business representative of the great Blackbeard," he said, "the most powerful pirate in the world. You are safer here than in any other port on the American coast."

When they were out upon the water, moving against the gentle breeze, Bonnet disclosed the object of his excursion. "I am going to take you," said he, "to visit some of the noted pirate ships which are anchored in this harbour. There are vessels here which are quite famous, and commanded by renowned Brethren of the Coast. I think you will all be greatly interested in these, and under my convoy you need fear no danger."

Dame Charter and Kate screamed in their fright, and Mr. Delaplaine turned pale. "Visit pirate ships!" he cried. "Rather I would have supposed that you would keep away from them as far as you could. For myself, I would have them a hundred miles distant if it were possible."

Bonnet laughed loftily. "It will be visits of ceremony that we shall pay, and with all due ceremony shall we be received. Pull out to that vessel!" he said to the oarsmen. Then, turning to the others, he remarked: "That sloop is the Dripping Blade, commanded by Captain Sorby, whose name strikes terror throughout the Spanish Main. Ay! and in other parts of the ocean, I can assure you, for he has sailed northward nearly as far as I have, but he has not yet rivalled me. I know him, having done business with him on shore. He is a most portentous person, as you will soon see."

"Oh, father!" cried Kate, "don't take us there; it will kill us just to look upon such dreadful pirates. I pray you turn the boat!"

"Oh! if Dickory were here," gasped Dame Charter, "he would turn the boat himself; he would never allow me to be taken among those awful wretches."

Mr. Delaplaine said nothing. It was too late to expostulate, but he trembled as he sat.

"I cannot turn back, my dear," said Bonnet, "even if I would, for the great Sorby is now on deck, and looking at us as we approach."

As the boat drew up by the side of the Dripping Blade the renowned Sorby looked down over the side. He was a red-headed man; his long hair and beard dyed yellow in some places by the sun. He was grievous to look upon, and like to create in the mind of an imaginative person the image of a sun-burned devil on a holiday.

"Good-day to you! Good-day, Sir Bonnet," cried the pirate captain; "come on board, come on board, all of you, wife, daughter, father, if such they be! We'll let down ladders and I shall feast you finely."

"Nay, nay, good Captain Sorby," replied Bonnet, with courteous dignity, "my family and I have just stopped to pay you our respects. They have all heard of your great prowess, for I have told them. They may never have a chance again to look upon another of your fame."

"Heaven grant it!" said Dame Charter in her heart. "If I get out of this, I stay upon dry land forever."

"I grieve that my poor ship be not honoured by your ladies," said Sorby, "but I admit that her decks are scarcely fit for the reception of such company. It is but to-day that we have found time to cleanse her deck from the stain and disorder of our last fight, having lately come into harbour. That was a great fight, Sir Bonnet; we lay low and let the fellows board us, but not one of them went back again. Ha! ha! Not one of them went back again, good ladies."

Every pirate face on board that ill-conditioned sloop now glared over her rail, their eyes fixed upon the goodly company in the little boat, their horrid hair and beards stained and matted—it would have been hard to tell by what.

"Oh, father, father!" panted Kate, "please row away. What if they should now jump down upon us?"

"Good-day, good-day, my brave Captain Sorby," said Bonnet, "we must e'en row away; we have other craft to visit, but would first do honour to you and your bold crew."

Captain Sorby lifted high his great bespattered hat, and every grinning demon of the crew waved hat or rag or pail or cutlass and set up a discordant yell in honour of their departing visitors.

"Oh! go not to another, father," pleaded Kate, her pale face in tears; "visit no more of them, I pray you!"

"Ay, truly, keep away from them," said Mr. Delaplaine. "I am no coward, but I vow to you that I shall die of fright if I come close to another of those floating hells."

"And these," said Kate to herself, her eyes fixed out over the sea, "these are his friends, his companions, the wretches of whom he is so proud."

"There are no more vessels like that in port," said Bonnet; "that's the most celebrated sloop. Those we shall now call upon are commanded by men of milder mien; some of them you could not tell from plain merchantmen were you not informed of their illustrious careers."

"If you go near another pirate ship," cried Dame Charter, "I shall jump overboard; I cannot help it."

"Row back to the Belinda, brother-in-law," said Mr. Delaplaine in a strong, hard voice; "your tour of pleasure is not fit for tender-hearted women, nor, I grant it, for gentlemen of my station."

"There are other ships whose captains I know," said Bonnet, "and where you would have been well received; but if your nerves are not strong enough for the courtesies I have to offer, we will return to the Belinda."

When safe again on board their vessel, after the sudden termination of their projected tour of calls on pirates, Kate took her father aside and entered into earnest conversation with him, while Mr. Delaplaine, much ruffled in his temper, although in general of a most mild disposition, said aside to Dame Charter: "He is as mad as a March hare. What other parent on this earth would convey his fair young daughter into the society of these vile wild beasts, which in his eyes are valiant heroes? We must get him back with us, Dame Charter, we must get him back. And if he cannot be constrained by love and goodwill to a decent and a Christian life, we must shut him up. And if his daughter weeps and raves, we must e'en stiffen our determination and shut him up. It shall be my purpose now to hasten the return of the brig. There's room enough for all, and he and the Scotchman must go back with us. The Governor shall deal with him; and, whether it be on my estate or behind strong bars, he shall spend the rest of his days upon the island of Jamaica, and so know the sea no more."

He was very much roused, this good merchant, and when he was roused he was not slow to act.

The captain of the Belinda was very willing to make a profitable voyage back to Jamaica, but his vessel must be well laden before he could do this. Goods enough there were at Belize for that purpose, for Blackbeard's supplies were all for sale, and his chief clerk, Bonnet, had the selling of them. So, all parties being like-minded, the Belinda soon began to take on goods for Kingston.

Stede Bonnet superintended everything. He was a good man of business, and knew how to direct people who might be under him. There was a great stir at the storehouse, and, almost blithely, Ben Greenway worked day and night to make out invoices and to prepare goods for shipment.

Bonnet wore no more the clothes in which his daughter had first seen him after so long and drear a parting. On deck or on shore, in storehouse or on the streets of Belize, he was the fine gentleman with the silk stockings and the tall cocked hat.

One day, a fellow, fresh from his bottle, forgetting the respect which was due to fine clothes and to Blackbeard's factor, called out to Bonnet: "What now, Sir Nightcap, how call you that thing you have on your head?"

In an instant a sword was whipped from its scabbard and a practised hand sent its blade through the arm of the jester, who presently fell backward. Bonnet wiped his sword upon the fellow's sleeve and, advising him to get up and try to learn some manners, coolly walked away.

After that fine clothes were not much laughed at in Belize, for even the most disrespectful ruffians desired not the thrust of a quick blade nor the ill-will of that most irascible pirate, Blackbeard.

A few days before it was expected that the Belinda would be ready to sail Bonnet came on board, his mind full of an important matter. Calling Mr. Delaplaine and Kate aside, he said: "I have been thinking a great deal lately about my Scotchman, Ben Greenway. In the first place, he is greatly needed here, for many of Blackbeard's goods will remain in the storehouse, and there should be some competent person to take care of them and to sell them should opportunity offer. Besides that, he is a great annoyance to me, and I have long been trying to get rid of him. When I left Bridgetown I had not intended to take him with me, and his presence on board my ship was a mere accident. Since then he has made himself very disagreeable."

"What!" cried Kate, "would you be willing that we should all sail away and leave poor Ben Greenway in this place by himself among these cruel pirates?"

"He'll represent Blackbeard," said Bonnet, "and no one will harm him. And, moreover, this enforced stay may be of the greatest benefit to him. He has a good head for business, and he may establish himself here in a very profitable fashion and go back to Barbadoes, if he so desires, in comfortable circumstances. All we have to do is to slip our anchor and sail away at some moment when he is busy in the town. I will leave ample instructions for him and he shall have money."

"Father, it would be shameful!" said Kate.

Mr. Delaplaine said nothing; he was too angry to speak, but he made up his mind that Ben Greenway should be apprised of Bonnet's intentions of running away from him and that such a wicked design should be thwarted. This brother-in-law of his was a worse man than he had thought him; he was capable of being false even to his best friend. He might be mad as a March hare, but, truly, he was also as sly and crafty as a fox in any month in the year.

Wise Mr. Delaplaine!

The very next morning there came a letter from Stede Bonnet to his daughter Kate, in which he told her that it was absolutely impossible for him to return to the humdrum and stupid life of sugar-planting and cattle-raising. Having tasted the glories of a pirate's career, he could never again be contented with plain country pursuits. So he was off and away, the bounding sea beneath him and the brave Jolly Roger floating over his head. He would not tell his dear daughter where he was gone or what he intended to do, for she would be happier if she did not know. He sent her his warmest love, and desired to be most kindly remembered to her uncle and to Dame Charter. He would make it his business that a correspondence should be maintained between him and his dear Kate, and he hoped from time to time to send her presents which would help her to know how constantly he loved her. He concluded by admitting that what he had said about Ben Greenway was merely a blind to turn their suspicions from his intended departure. If his good brother-in-law, out of kindness to the Scotchman, had brought him to the Belinda and had insisted on keeping him there, it would have made his, Bonnet's, secret departure a great deal easier.

Kate had never fainted in her life, but when she had finished this letter she went down flat on her back.

Leaving his niece to the good offices of Dame Charter, Mr. Delaplaine, breathing hotly, went ashore, accompanied by the captain. When they reached the storehouse they found it locked, with the key in the custody of a shop-keeper near-by. They soon heard what had happened to Blackbeard's business agent. He had gone off in a piratical vessel, which had sailed for somewhere, in the middle of the night; and, moreover, it was believed that the Scotchman who worked for him had gone with him, for he had been seen running towards the water, and afterward taking his place among the oarsmen in a boat which went out to the departing vessel.

"May that unholy vessel be sunk as soon as it reaches the open sea!" was the deadly desire which came from the heart of Mr. Delaplaine. But the wish had not formed itself into words before the good merchant recanted. "I totally forgot that faithful Scotchman," he sighed.



CHAPTER XXVI

DICKORY STRETCHES HIS LEGS

There were jolly times on board the swift ship Revenge as she sped through the straits of Florida on her way up the Atlantic coast. The skies were bright, the wind was fair, and the warm waters of the Gulf Stream helped to carry her bravely on her way. But young Dickory Charter, with the blood-stained letter of Captain Vince tucked away in the lining of his coat, ate so little, tossed about so much in his berth, turned so pale and spoke so seldom, that the bold Captain Blackbeard declared that he should have some medicine.

"I shall not let my fine lieutenant suffer for want of drugs," he cried, "and when I reach Charles Town I shall send ashore a boat and procure some; and if the citizens disturb or interfere with my brave fellows, I'll bombard the town. There will be medicine to take on one side or the other, I swear." And loud and ready were the oaths he swore.

A pirate who carries with him an intended son-in-law is not likely, if he be of Blackbeard's turn of mind, to suffer all his family plans to be ruined for the want of a few drugs.

When Dickory heard what the captain had to say on this subject his heart shrank within him. He had never taken medicine and he had never seen Blackbeard's daughter, but the one seemed to him almost as bad as the other, and the thought of the cool waves beneath him became more attractive than ever before. But that thought was quickly banished, for he had a duty before him, and not until that was performed could he take leave of this world, once so bright to him.

An island with palm-trees slowly rose on the horizon, and off this island it was that, after a good deal of tacking and close-hauling, the Revenge lay to to take in water. Far better water than that which had been brought from Belize.

"Do you want to go ashore in the boat, boy?" said Blackbeard, really mindful of the health of this projected member of his family. "It may help your appetite to use your legs."

Dickory did not care to go anywhere, but he had hardly said so when a revulsion of feeling came upon him, and turning away so that his face might not be noticed, he said he thought the land air might do him good. While the men were at work carrying their pails from the well-known spring to the water-barrels in the boat, Dickory strolled about to view the scenery, for it could never have been expected that a first lieutenant in uniform should help to carry water. At first the scenery did not appear to be very interesting, and Dickory wandered slowly from here to there, then sat down under a tree. Presently he rose and went to another tree, a little farther away from the boat and the men at the spring. Here he quietly took off his shoes and his stockings, and, having nothing else to do, made a little bundle of them, listlessly tying them to his belt; then he rose and walked away somewhat brisker, but not in the direction of the boat. He did not hurry, but even stopped sometimes to look at things, but he still walked a little briskly, and always away from the boat. He had been so used, this child of outdoor life, to going about the world barefooted, that it was no wonder that he walked briskly, being relieved of his encumbering shoes and stockings.

After a time he heard a shout behind him, and turning saw three men of the boat's crew upon a little eminence, calling to him. Then he moved more quickly, always away from the boat, and with his head turned he saw the men running towards him, and their shouts became louder and wilder. Then he set off on a good run, and presently heard a pistol shot. This he knew was to frighten him and make him stop, but he ran the faster and soon turned the corner of a bit of woods. Then he was away at the top of his speed, making for a jungle of foliage not a quarter of a mile before him. Shouts he heard, and more shots, but he caught sight of no pursuers. Urged on even as they were by the fear of returning to the ship without Dickory, they could not expect to match, in their heavy boots, the stag-like speed of this barefooted bounder.

After a time Dickory stopped running, for his path, always straight away, so far as he could judge, from the landing-place, became very difficult. In the forest there were streams, sometimes narrow and sometimes wide, and how deep he knew not, so that now he jumped, now he walked on fallen trees. Sometimes he crossed water and marsh by swinging himself from the limbs of one tree to those of another. This was hard work for a young gentleman in a naval uniform and cocked hat, but it had to be done; and when the hat was knocked off it was picked up again, with its feathers dripping.

Dickory was going somewhere, although he knew not whither, and he had solemn business to perform which he had sworn to do, and therefore he must have fit clothes to wear, not only in which to travel but in which to present himself suitably when he should accomplish his mission. All these things Dickory thought of, and he picked up his cocked hat whenever it dropped. He would have been very hungry had he not bethought himself to fill his pockets with biscuits before he left the vessel. And as to fresh water, there was no lack of that.



CHAPTER XXVII

A GIRL WHO LAUGHED

It was towards nightfall of the day on which Dickory had escaped from the pirates at the spring that he found himself on a piece of high ground in an open place in the forest, and here he determined to spend the night. With his dirk he cut a quantity of palmetto leaves and made himself a very comfortable bed, on which he was soon asleep, fearing no pirates.

In the morning he rose early from his green couch, ate the few biscuits which were left in his pockets, and, putting on his shoes and stockings, started forth upon, what might have been supposed to be, an aimless tramp.

But it was not aimless. Dickory had a most wholesome dread of that indomitable apostle of cruelty and wickedness, the pirate Blackbeard. He believed that it would be quite possible for that savage being to tie up his beard in tails, to blacken his face with powder, to hang more pistols from his belt and around his neck, and swear that the Revenge should never leave her anchorage until her first lieutenant had been captured and brought back to her. So he had an aim, and that was to get away as far as possible from the spot where he had landed on the island.

He did not believe that his pursuers, if there were any upon his track, could have travelled in the night, for it had been pitchy black; and, as he now had a good start of them, he thought he might go so far that they would give up the search. Then he hoped to be able to keep himself alive until he was reasonably sure that the Revenge had hoisted anchor and sailed away, when it was his purpose to make his way back to the spring and wait for some other vessel which would take him away.

With his shoes on he travelled more easily, although not so swiftly, and after an hour of very rough walking he heard a sound which made him stop instantly and listen. At first he thought it might be the wind in the trees, but soon his practised ear told him that it was the sound of the surf upon the beach. Without the slightest hesitation, he made his way as quickly as possible towards the sound of the sea.

In less than half an hour he found himself upon a stretch of sand which extended from the forest to the sea, and upon which the waves were throwing themselves in long, crested lines. With a cry of joy he ran out upon the beach, and with outstretched arms he welcomed the sea as if it had been an old and well-tried friend.

But Dickory's gratitude and joy had nothing to found itself upon. The sea might far better have been his enemy than his friend, for if he had thought about it, the sandy beach would have been the road by which a portion of the pirate's men would have marched to cut off his flight, or they would have accomplished the same end in boats.

But Dickory thought of no enemy and his heart was cheered. He pressed on along the beach. The walking was so much better now that he made good progress, and the sun had not reached its zenith when he found himself on the shore of a small stream which came down from some higher land in the interior and here poured itself into the sea. He walked some distance by this stream, in order to get some water which might be free from brackishness, and then, with very little trouble, he crossed it. Before him was a knoll of moderate height, and covered with low foliage. Mounting this, he found that he had an extended view over the interior of the island. In the background there stretched a wide savanna, and at the distance of about half a mile he saw, very near a little cluster of trees, a thin column of smoke. His eyes rounded and he stared and stared. He now perceived, from behind the leaves, the end of a thatched roof.

"People!" Dickory exclaimed, and his heart beat fast with joy. Why his heart should be joyful he could not have told himself except that there was no earthly reason to believe that the persons who were making that fire near that thatched-roof house were pirates. To go to this house, whatever it might be, to take his chances there instead of remaining alone in the wide forest, was our young man's instant determination. But before he started there was something else he thought of. He took off his coat, and with a bunch of leaves he brushed it. Then he arranged the plumes of his hat and brushed some mud from them, gave himself a general shake, and was ready to make a start. All this by a fugitive pursued by savage pirates on a desert island! But Dickory was a young man, and he wore the uniform of a naval officer.

After a brisk walk, which was somewhat longer than he had supposed it would be, Dickory reached the house behind the trees. At a short distance burned the fire whose smoke he had seen. Over the fire hung an iron pot. Oh, blessed pot! A gentle breeze blew from the fire towards Dickory, and from the heavenly odour which was borne upon it he knew that something good to eat was cooking in that pot.

A man came quickly from behind the house. He was tall, with a beard a little gray, and his scanty attire was of the most nondescript fashion. With amazement upon his face, he spoke to Dickory in English.

"What, sir," he cried, "has a man-of-war touched at this island?"

Dickory could not help smiling, for the man's countenance told him how he had been utterly astounded, and even stupefied, by the sight of a gentleman in naval uniform in the interior of that island, an almost desert region.

"No man-of-war has touched here," said Dickory, "and I don't belong to one. I wear these clothes because I am compelled to do so, having no others. Yesterday afternoon I escaped from some pirates who stopped for water, and since leaving them I have made my way to this spot."

The man stepped forth quickly and stretched out his hand.

"Bless you! Bless you!" he cried. "You are the first human being, other than my family, that I have seen for two years."

A little girl now came from behind the house, and when her eyes fell upon Dickory and his cocked hat she screamed with terror and ran indoors. A woman appeared at the door, evidently the man's wife. She had a pleasant face, but her clothes riveted Dickory's attention. It would be impossible to describe them even if one were gazing upon them. It will be enough to say that they covered her. Her amazement more than equalled that of her husband; she stood and stared, but could not speak.

"From the spring at the end of the island," cried the man, "to this house since yesterday afternoon! I have always supposed that no one could get here from the spring by land. I call that way impassable. You are safe here, sir, I am sure. Pirates would not follow very far through those forests and morasses; they would be afraid they would never get back to their ship. But I will find out for certain if you have reason, sir, to fear pursuit by boat or otherwise."

And then, stepping around to the other end of the house, he called, "Lucilla!"

"You are hungry, sir," said the woman; "presently you shall share our meal, which is almost cooked."

Now the man returned.

"This is not a time for questions, sir," he said, "either from you or from us. You must eat and you must rest, then we can talk. We shall not any of us apologize for our appearance, and you will not expect it when you have heard our story. But I can assure you, sir, that we do not look nearly so strange to you as you appear to us. Never before, sir, did I see in this climate, and on shore, a man attired in such fashion."

Dickory smiled. "I will tell you the tale of it," he said, "when we have eaten; I admit that I am famished."

The man was now called away, and when he returned he said to Dickory: "Fear nothing, sir; your ship is no longer at the anchorage by the spring. She has sailed away, wisely concluding, I suppose, that pursuit of you would be folly, and even madness."

The dinner was an exceedingly plain one, spread upon a rude table under a tree. The little girl, who had overcome her fear of "the soldier" as she considered him, made one of the party.

During the meal Dickory briefly told his story, confining it to a mere statement of his escape from the pirates.

"Blackbeard!" exclaimed the man. "Truly you did well to get away from him, no matter into what forests you plunged or upon what desert island you lost yourself. At any moment he might have turned upon you and cut you to pieces to amuse himself. I have heard the most horrible stories of Blackbeard."

"He treated me very well," said Dickory, "but I know from his own words that he reserved me for a most horrible fate."

"What!" exclaimed the man, "and he told you? He is indeed a demon!"

"Yes," said Dickory, "he said over and over again that he was going to take me to England to marry me to his daughter."

At this the wife could not refrain from a smile. "Matrimony is not generally considered a horrible fate," said she; "perhaps his daughter may be a most comely and estimable young person. Girls do not always resemble their fathers."

"Do not mention it," exclaimed Dickory, with a shudder; "that was one reason that I ran away; I preferred any danger from man or beast to that he was taking me to."

"He is engaged to be married," thought the woman; "it is easy enough to see that."

"Now tell me your story, I pray you," said Dickory. "But first, I would like very much to know how you found out that Blackbeard's ship was not at her anchorage?"

"That's a simple thing," said the man. "Of course you did not observe, for you could not, that from its eastern point where lies the spring, this island stretches in a long curve to the south, reaching northward again about this spot. Consequently, there is a little bay to the east of us, across which we can see the anchoring ground of such ships as may stop here for water. Your way around the land curve of the island was a long one, but the distance straight across the bay is but a few miles. Upon a hill not far from here there is a very tall tree, which overtops all the other trees, and to the upper branches of this tree my daughter, who is a great climber, frequently ascends with a small glass, and is thus able to report if there is a vessel at the anchorage."

"What!" exclaimed Dickory, "that little girl?"

"Oh, no!" said the man; "it is my other daughter, who is a grown young woman."

"She is not here now," said the mother. And this piece of unnecessary information was given in tones which might indicate that the young lady had stepped around to visit a neighbour.

"It is important," said the man, "that I should know if vessels have anchored here, for if they be merchantmen I sometimes do business with them."

"Business!" said Dickory. "That sounds extremely odd. Pray tell me how you came to be here."

"My name is Mander," said the other, "and about two years ago I was on my way from England to Barbadoes, where, with my wife and two girls, I expected to settle. We were captured by a pirate ship and marooned upon this island. I will say, to the pirate captain's credit, that he was a good sort of man considering his profession. He sailed across the bay on purpose to find a suitable place to land us, and he left with us some necessary articles, such as axes and tools, kitchen utensils, and a gun with some ammunition. Then he sailed away, leaving us here, and here we have since lived. Under the circumstances, we have no right to complain, for had we been taken by an ordinary pirate it is likely that our bones would now be lying at the bottom of the ocean.

"Here I have worked hard and have made myself a home, such as it is. There are wild cattle upon the distant savannas, and I trap game and birds, cultivate the soil to a certain extent, and if we had clothes I might say we would be in better circumstances than many a respectable family in England. Sometimes when a merchantman anchors here and I have hides or anything else which we can barter for things we need, I row over the bay in a canoe which I have made, and have thus very much bettered our condition. But in no case have I been able to provide my family with suitable clothes."

"Why did you not get some of these merchant ships to carry you away?" asked Dickory.

The man shook his head. "There is no place," he said sadly, "to which I can in reason ask a ship to carry me and my family. We have no money, no property whatever. In any other place I would be far poorer than I am here. My children are not uneducated; my wife and I have done our best for them in that respect, and we have some books with us. So, as you see, it would be rash in me to leave a home which, rude as it is, shelters and supports my family, to go as paupers and strangers to some other land."

The wife heaved a sigh. "But poor Lucilla!" she said. "It is dreadful that she should be forced to grow up here."

"Lucilla?" asked Dickory.

"Yes, sir," she said, "my eldest daughter. But she is not here now."

Dickory thought that it was somewhat odd that he should be again informed of a fact which he knew very well, but he made no remarks upon the subject.

Still wearing his cocked hat—for he had nothing else with which to shield his head from the sun—and with his uniform coat on, for he had not yet an opportunity of ripping from it the letter he carried, and this he would not part from—Dickory roamed about the little settlement. Mander was an industrious and thrifty man. His garden, his buildings, and his surroundings showed that.

Walking past a clump of low bushes, Dickory was startled by a laugh—a hearty laugh—the laugh of a girl. Looking quickly around, he saw, peering above the tops of the bushes, the face of the girl who had laughed.

"It is too funny!" she said, as his eyes fell upon her. "I never saw anything so funny in all my life. A man in regimentals in this weather and upon a desert island. You look as if you had marched faster than your army, and that you had lost it in the forest."

Dickory smiled. "You ought not to laugh at me," he said, "for these clothes are really a great misfortune. If I could change them for something cool I should be more than delighted."

"You might take off your heavy coat," said she; "you need not be on parade here. And instead of that awful hat, I can make you one of long grass. Do you see the one I have on? Isn't that a good hat? I have one nearly finished which I am making for my father; you may have that."

Dickory would most gladly have taken off his coat if, without observation, he could have transferred his sacred letter to some other part of his clothes, but he must wait for that. He accepted instantly, however, the offer of the hat.

"You seem to know all about me," he said; "did you hear me tell my story?"

"Every word of it," said she, "and it is the queerest story I ever heard. Think of a pirate carrying a man away to marry him to his daughter!"

"But why don't you come from behind that bush and talk to me?"

"I can't do it," said she, "I am dressed funnier than you are. Now I am going to make your hat." And in an instant she had departed.

Dickory now strolled on, and when he returned he seated himself in the shade near the house. The letter of Captain Vince was taken from his coat-lining and secured in one of his breeches pockets; his heavy coat and waistcoat lay upon the ground beside him, with the cocked hat placed upon them. As he leaned back against the tree and inhaled the fragrant breeze which came to him from the forest, Dickory was a more cheerful young man than he had been for many, many days. He thought of this himself, and wondered how a man, carrying with him his sentence of lifelong misery, could lean against a tree and take pleasure in anything, be it a hospitable welcome, a sense of freedom from danger, a fragrant breeze, or the face of a pretty girl behind a bush. But these things did please him; he could not help it. And when presently came Mrs. Mander, bringing him a light grass hat fresh from the manufacturer's hands, he took it and put it on with more evident pleasure than the occasion seemed to demand.

"Your daughter is truly an artist," said Dickory.

"She does many things well," said the mother, "because necessity compels her and all of us to learn to work in various ways."

"Can I not thank her?" said Dickory.

"No," the mother answered, "she is not here now."

Dickory had begun to hate that self-evident statement.

"She's looking out for ships; her pride is a little touched that she missed Blackbeard's vessel yesterday."

"Perhaps," said Dickory, with a movement as if he would like to make a step in the direction of some tall tree upon a hill.

"No," said Mrs. Mander, "I cannot ask you to join my daughter. I am compelled to state that her dress is not a suitable one in which to appear before a stranger."

"Excuse me," said Dickory; "and I beg, madam, that you will convey to her my thanks for making me such an excellent hat."

A little later Mander joined Dickory. "I am sorry, sir," said he, "that I am not able to present you to my daughter Lucilla. It is a great grief to us that her attire compels her to deny herself other company than that of her family. I really believe, sir, that it is Lucilla's deprivations on this island which form at present my principal discontent with my situation. But we all enjoy good health, we have enough to eat, and shelter over us, and should not complain."

As soon as he was at liberty to do so, Dickory walked by the hedge of low bushes, and there, above it, was the bright face, with the pretty grass hat.

"I was waiting for you," said she. "I wanted to see how that hat fitted, and I think it does nicely. And I wanted to tell you that I have been looking out for ships, but have not seen one. I don't mean by that that I want you to go away almost as soon as you have come, but of course, if a merchant ship should anchor here, it would be dreadful for you not to know."

"I am not sure," said Dickory gallantly, "that I am in a hurry for a ship. It is truly very pleasant here."

"What makes it pleasant?" said the girl.

Dickory hesitated for a moment. "The breeze from the forest," said he.

She laughed. "It is charming," she said, "but there are so many places where there is just as good a breeze, or perhaps better. How I would like to go to some one of them! To me this island is lonely and doleful. Every time I look over the sea for a ship I hope that one will come that can carry us away."

"Then," said Dickory, "I wish a ship would come to-morrow and take us all away together."

She shook her head. "As my father told you," said she, "we have no place to go to."

Dickory thought a good deal about the sad condition of the family of this worthy marooner. He thought of it even after he had stretched himself for the night upon the bed of palmetto leaves beneath the tree against which he had leaned when he wondered how he could be so cheerful under the shadow of the sad fate which was before him.



CHAPTER XXVIII

LUCILLA'S SHIP

As soon as Dickory had left off his cocked hat and his gold-embroidered coat, the little girl Lena had ceased to be afraid of him, and the next morning she came to him, seated lonely—for this was a busy household—and asked him if he would like to take a walk. So, hand in hand, they wandered away. Presently they entered a path which led through the woods.

"This is the way my sister goes to her lookout tree," said the little girl. "Would you like to see that tree?"