United States or Puerto Rico ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Before sunset the largest of the strange sail shifted her course as though to set out in chase and overhaul the deep-laden merchant trader. Captain Wellsby stood near the tiller, his hands clasped behind him, a solid, dependable figure of a British mariner.
Nothing remained but to try to knock together one or more rafts. Captain Wellsby discussed it with his officers and it was agreed that the able-bodied pirates should be left to build a raft for themselves, taking their own wounded with them. This was more mercy than they had any right to expect.
And he has more lives than a cat. See you my dear crony, Master Jack?" "No, I cannot make him out in that mad turmoil," replied Captain Wellsby. "Nip and tuck, I call it, Joe." This was the opinion forced upon Lieutenant Maynard as he saw the engagement resolve itself into a series of bloody whirlpools, his seamen and the pirates intermingled.
Captain Wellsby faced him with unshaken composure and returned in a strong voice: "I beg no favors for myself but these helpless people, women amongst them, came on board with my assurance of safety. They have friends and kinsmen in Charles Town who will ransom them in gold." Blackbeard's mien was a shade less ferocious as he cried: "Gold? Can it cool a fever or heal a festering sore?
One is the pirate younker that served our cause in the Plymouth Adventure and t'other is Master Jack Cockrell!" One of the Charles Town volunteers heard only the word pirate and growled, with an oath: "One o' Blackbeard's spawn? We'll make precious short work of him. Hand me a musket and I will save trouble for the hangman." "Here, stop that," said Captain Wellsby, beckoning his own men.
Captain Jonathan Wellsby picked himself up, rubbed a bump on his head, and gazed wildly at the tragic scene. Collecting his wits, he exclaimed: "That 'ud be like Ned Rackham, to blow up the ship sooner than be taken and hanged. More than likely he had the train all laid to the powder barrels." "He saved us a lot of trouble," said Colonel Stuart as he climbed to the poop.
It was impossible to escape these three strange vessels by beating back to Charles Town, for the Plymouth Adventure made lubberly work of it when thrashing to windward. She was a swift ship, however, before a fair wind, and Captain Wellsby resolved to run for it, hoping to edge away from danger if his suspicions should be confirmed.
To be captured by Blackbeard was a finer adventure than strutting arm-in-arm with Captain Stede Bonnet. It was mournful, indeed, that Captain Wellsby should have to lose his ship but 'tis an ill wind that blows nobody good and the voyage to England, which Jack had loathed from the bottom of his heart, was indefinitely postponed.
"I helped search the cabin afore the brig was set afire," replied one of the seamen, "and all the writin' we found was in the bit of a book with the leaves tore out, same as Cap'n Wellsby made a fair copy of." "That explains it," cried Uncle Peter. "I have no doubt the vile Blackbeard destroyed his private note of where he hid it, just to make the matter more difficult for us honest men."
"I am so aware," said Captain Wellsby, his honest features glum, "but we cannot change the odds." He found an ink-horn and quill and laboriously wrote a few lines on a leaf torn from the back of a sea-stained log-book. Jack tucked it carefully away and thus they parted company, perhaps to meet no more in life.
Word Of The Day