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Updated: June 24, 2025
"I have had enough of wandering and strange adventures, Joe. I want to go home." IT seems a long time, in the course of this story, since the honorable Secretary of the Council, Mr. Peter Arbuthnot Forbes, was forced to sail in to Charles Town from the Plymouth Adventure on that most humiliating errand of finding medicines for Blackbeard's fever-smitten rogues.
It was foolish to assume that the dozen seamen who had been left to keep the ship would attempt resisting Blackbeard's mob of pirates all primed for slaughter. When quietude seemed to reign all through the ship Joe Hawkridge whispered this opinion: "If his fancy was to deal with 'em later, he would pitch the lot down here in the hold. Failing that, Jack, he has offered 'em the chance to enlist.
"It could not be helped," the boy protested. "People from Tennis suddenly rushed in. The first a big, furious fellow-killed our Loule and the fierce Judas. Now he has to pay for it. Little Chareb threw the black powder into his eyes, while Hanno himself thrust the torch in his face." "And Bias, the blackbeard's slave?" "I don't know. Oh, yes! Wounded, I believe, on board the ship."
Blackbeard's treasure chest was not half so precious as a side of salted fish which he ran down by scent, saying to himself: "With this rancid cheese and the slab o' ancient cod, ye could smell my course a league to wind'ard." In a crumpled sack he found a few pounds of what seemed to be wheat flour, by the feel and taste of it. Poor stuff as it was, dry and uncooked, he added it to his stock.
The upright beams between the keelson and the deck threw black shadows over them and they were in no great peril of detection so long as they stayed motionless. Joe Hawkridge had heard gossip of this extraordinary amusement as a kind of initiation for hands newly joining Blackbeard's ship.
At last, somewhere about the latter part of the year 1716, a privateering captain, one Benjamin Hornigold, raised him from the ranks and put him in command of a sloop a lately captured prize and Blackbeard's fortune was made. It was a very slight step, and but the change of a few letters, to convert "privateer" into "pirate," and it was a very short time before Teach made that change.
His behavior was courageous and unselfish, for he could have fled back into the swamp when Blackbeard's wily attack threw the camp into tumult. From a sense of duty he flung himself into the fray. What friends he had in the ship were those of the decenter sort who were tired of wanton brutalities and of a master who was no better than a lunatic.
So when he was away I took to reading to beguile my thoughts; but found little choice of matter, having only my aunt's red Prayer-book that I thrust into my bosom the afternoon that I left Moonfleet, and Blackbeard's locket.
"And you, fellow?" the old dame asked; then, recollecting herself, stopped the reply on the servant's lips with the hasty remark: "You are the blackbeard's slave a Biamite? Oh, I remember perfectly! You disappeared with the burning house."
It floated at the end of a tether but the bow of the canoe pressed the stern under and tipped it until the water rushed in. Listed far over, the sea-chest slid a trifle and this was enough to push the gunwale clear under. The boat filled and capsized, what with the weight of the chest and the pressure of the canoe's fore part. Down to the oozy bed sank Blackbeard's treasure.
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