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Updated: June 19, 2025
Almost at the same time, the third boat had made fast under the jutting stern gallery and its twenty men were piling in through the cabin windows like so many human projectiles. In the King George brigantine, Captain Jonathan Wellsby fidgeted and gnawed his lip, with a telescope at his eye, while he watched the conflict in which he could scarce distinguish friend from foe.
"That sounds familiar enough to me," was Joe Hawkridge's comment. "And the rest of his writing will be much like it." "Not so fast," exclaimed Captain Wellsby. "Scan the next page, Jack. 'Twill fetch you up all standing. Not that it puts gold in our pockets, for we know not where to search, but I swear it will make your eyes sparkle and your mouth water."
The carpenter sounded the well and solemnly stared at the wetted rod by the flicker of his horn lantern. The ship was settling. It was his doleful surmise that she leaked where the pounding spars overside had started the butts. It was man the pumps to keep the old hooker afloat and Captain Wellsby ordered his weary men to sway at the brakes, watch and watch.
Ropes were flung to them and Joe saw his good friend safely aboard before he went up the side. The carpenter's mate was both burned and bruised but his hurts were not grievous and he was able to drag himself aft with Joe as a crutch. "My own particular prize, sir, by your gracious leave," said Joe Hawkridge, addressing Captain Wellsby. "This is Mr.
Caught in this manner, the gun was dragged to the broken bulwark and there it was held with the battered carriage in air. The mainmast was floating alongside the ship which it belabored with thumps that jarred the hull. It was likely to stave in the skin of the vessel and Captain Wellsby shouted to his men to hack at the trailing cordage and send the mast clear before it did a fatal injury.
From half-closed eyes he watched Ned Rackham, a vigilant, dominant figure in a tarred jacket and quilted breeches and long sea-boots. Now and again he cupped his hands and yelled in the ear of Captain Wellsby whose beard was gray with brine. Jack saw that it was hopeless to get a private word with the skipper on deck. The clamor of the storm was too deafening.
"Then I stays aboard ship and miss the chance to go pokin' about with a cutlass? I'm all screwed up to terrible deeds, Cap'n Wellsby, after a spell o' mortal fear. And who takes care of Master Cockrell if he goes in a boat?" "His own lusty right arm, Joe. Avast with your melancholy. We must first catch this Blackbeard."
She was no merchant ship, this was already clear, but there was still the hope that she might be a man-of-war or a privateer. Captain Wellsby looked in vain for her colors. At length he saw a flag whip from the spanker gaff. He laid down the glass with a profound sigh. The flag was black with a sinister device, a white blotch whose outline suggested a human skull.
The sea was tranquil and the breeze steady. The ship was clothed in canvas which bellied to drive her eastward with a frothing wake. Safely she left the outer bar astern and wallowed in the ocean swell. The afternoon sun was sinking when a sail gleamed like a bit of cloud against the southerly sky. Captain Wellsby held to his course and showed no uneasiness.
The fusillade of bricks held them long enough for the merchant sailors to escape from the forecastle and this was an advantage more precious than Captain Wellsby had hoped for. What the pirates required was a leader to rally them for attack. Quicker than it takes to tell it, Ned Rackham had raced along the poop and leaped to the waist at peril of breaking his neck.
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