United States or Chad ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
At this moment, the two vessels touched, whereupon Teach and his crew, with hideous yells, and a great gleam of cutlass blades, leapt upon the sloop's deck. Through the smoke cloud the awful figure of the pirate emerged, making for Maynard. At the same time, the men hidden in the sloop scrambled up from below, and the riot of the fight began.
The Smeaton had been sent from Arbroath with a cargo of stones one morning, and reached the rock about half-past six o'clock A.M. The mate and one of the men, James Scott, a youth of eighteen years of age, got into the sloop's boat to make fast the hawser to the floating buoy of her moorings.
The sloop's destination was Cherokee Inlet and she was equipped with tackle and gear for a peculiar kind of fishing. For once they made a voyage without fear of pirates. Safely the sloop passed in by the outlying cay where the charred bones of Blackbeard's brig were washed by the surf.
I've been down there with Uncle Tom. If we could get some fair-sized fish, it'd be worth our while to take 'em into Rockland." That afternoon they mustered their swordfish gear. In the house were three or four of the wrecked coaster's mast-hoops. One of these Jim lashed to the sloop's jibstay, about waist-high above the end of the bowsprit. "That'll do for the pulpit!"
Obeying the order meant twenty-four hour's delay in making sure of his wages, perhaps a week, spring weather being uncertain. He didn't "see no blow." Besides, if there was one coming, it wasn't his sloop or his stone. When he reached the foot of the bowsprit Moon-face sent this answer over the water: "Let her blow and be d ! This sloop's chartered to deliver this stone.
"I'm precious glad I ain't goin' to sea in her," observed another. "Same here," said the first speaker. "Why, look at the Siren over there! She's a 38-gun frigate, and her mainmast is only two feet longer than the Daphne's as I happen to know, for I had a hand in the buildin' of both the spars. The sloop's over-masted, that's what she is." I turned away and bent my steps homeward.
"To look and see if you were coming, of course." "Yes, of course," said the man, in a peculiar manner, and a curious smile dawned upon his lip. "But how did you manage to escape?" "Jumped overboard and swam for it." "From the cutter's boat?" "No, from the sloop's port-hole, my lad. But what about the cutter's boat?" he added, with a sharply questioning look.
At that instant I saw the sloop's sail fill and then, as if by a miracle, she slowly turned back to the open sea. Above the general din the brigadier's voice rang out, bellowing his orders. By the time the sloop had cleared the breakers his language had become unprintable.
Morrell, loitering near, saw this band depart for the water front, and followed them far enough to watch them embark, to witness the hoisting of the sloop's sails, and to see the craft heel to the evening breeze and slip away around the point. All things were going well. The committee suspected nothing of the plot to fasten the crime of piracy on it; Keith was out of the way.
Carroll appeared on the sloop's deck and answered him. "Hallo!" he cried. "What's the trouble?" "Get ready the best supper you can manage, for three people, as quick as you can!" "Supper for three people!" Vane caught the astonished exclamation and came near losing his temper. "For three people!" he shouted. "Don't ask any fool questions! You'll see later on!"
Word Of The Day