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Updated: June 19, 2025
After an hour of sailing in a strong breeze, it was seen that this other vessel was a small merchantman which shifted her course as though to shake off pursuit. "They take us for a pirate," chuckled Captain Wellsby. "I have no wish to scare 'em, poor souls. They will feel easy as soon as we bring the wind abeam."
In hot pursuit came the ravening Yemassees, yelling like fiends, assisted by the reinforcements of Captain Jonathan Wellsby. What saved the lives of these panic-smitten pirates was the dramatic explosion of that great treasure chest when it fell and smashed upon the log. Indians and Englishmen alike forgot their intent to shoot and slaughter.
This menace had occurred to Captain Jonathan Wellsby who stood tense and rigid at the sailing-master's elbow, watching him from the tail of his eye. Relief o'erspread the skipper's worn features when he espied Jack Cockrell who stood as if waiting for orders. A nod, a meaning glance, and they understood each other. Striving to appear unconcerned, Jack moved toward the forward part of the ship.
And pirates a-plenty to work her till he recruits a stronger force. All hands of 'em have a surfeit of Blackbeard's bloody whims an' didoes." "And Captain Wellsby will be caught off his guard?" said Jack, shivering at the aspect of this new terror. "Can he do aught to prevent, unless he is bold enough to forestall it?" answered the shrewd young sea waif.
With a smirk and a grimace he bowed clumsily to a woman on deck who had refused to desert her husband. He growled like a bear at Captain Wellsby and prodded the poor man with his cutlass as he thundered: "You tried my patience, shipmaster, with your cracking on sail. A little more and I'd ha' slit your throat. Blood an' wounds, would ye dare to vex Blackbeard?"
Captain Wellsby got rid of the rest of his men on this trip, excepting the gunner and carpenter, and these lingered with him as a kind of body-guard pending the ticklish business of releasing the imprisoned pirates and forsaking them to their own devices. The jolly-boat was laden to the gunwales and Jack Cockrell held back, saying to Joe Hawkridge: "Why trouble the captain to set us ashore?
With boisterous mirth, the sailors deftly turned other guns to bear and were careful not to let them get adrift. The muzzles had been well stopped against wetting by the sea and with a little dry powder for the priming, most of them could be served. They could not be reloaded for dearth of ammunition but Captain Wellsby felt confident that one round would suffice.
Ned Rackham was still alive, conscious and defiant, surviving a wound which would have been mortal in most cases. Whether he lived or died was a matter of small concern to Captain Wellsby but he ordered the surgeon to nurse him with special care.
And in the forecastle were thirty British seamen with hearts of oak, raging to be loosed with weapons in their hands. Peering into the gray smother of sea and sky, Captain Jonathan Wellsby licked his lips hungrily as he said to himself: "Not now, but if the storm abates and we float through the night, these lousy picaroons shall dance to another tune." JACK COCKRELL was seasick.
Comfortably quartered, with no more work than was wholesome, Jack Cockrell and Joe Hawkridge thought it a holiday excursion after their previous adventures at sea. In the roadstead of the James were two men-of-war, small frigates flying the broad pennant of the Royal Navy. A conference was held in the cabin of the senior officer, to which Captain Wellsby and Colonel Stuart were invited.
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