Chapter VI: Part 6

"Why yes, of course they are, Jack. But the French come with firearms, and we don't approve of firearms. We'd be glad to reason with them, if they'd listen to us. But men with guns don't generally want to listen to reason."

"And because they won't listen we run away," said Jack. "I can't understand that."

"You will when you're older," said the man, and went indoors for another box.

Jack went to Peter Black's, and helped him put his mother's silverware and valuables, securely tied in a sack, into a small hand-cart. Together the boys pushed the cart through the town and in the direction of the hiding-place. They secreted the sack in the cave beside the brook, and trundled the cart back to Gregory's shop. The night was fair and warm, and the shoemaker was sitting outside his house. "The town must be pretty empty by now," he said. "I've seen so many people hurrying away. Soon there'll be nothing left there but the governor and some stray cats and dogs. All our good citizens seem to prefer to spend the spring in the country."

"Come down to the Delaware with us, Mr. Diggs," urged Jack. "We wanted to leave Peter's cart here and go back by the river. It's fine at night."

"I know what you want," said Gregory, nodding very wisely. "You want to catch the first sight of the French frigates. Very well, I'll go along with you. Only you must let me get my pistol. I'm not going to be caught unarmed by the enemy."

The shoemaker, his pistol stuck in his belt, and the two boys struck across for the river. The sky was full of stars, and when they reached the bank they could easily make out the low-lying Jersey shore across the Delaware. All shipping, except a few small skiffs, had disappeared. "The big boats have run before the storm," said Gregory, "and the little ones are ready to make for the creeks at the first alarm. The French won't find any shipping here at any rate."

They went along the shore until they came to the southern end of the town. Even on the wharves there were very few men. "I think we'll have to be the lookouts," said Gregory, with a chuckle. "Here's a pile of logs. Let's sit here and watch for the frigates."

Down the three sat, the little shoemaker in the middle. "I think," said Jack thoughtfully, "that you're the only person in town who'd want to fight the enemy, unless perhaps Governor Evans would. I think I'd hate to run away as soon as we saw his ships. Wouldn't you hate to, Peter?"

"Now we've hid those things," said Peter, "I'd like to stay and see the fun."

"Of course you would," agreed Gregory. "I'll tell you how it is, my lads. There aren't many adventurers in this sober town of ours, only a few boys and an old shoemaker."

Jack glanced at the little man, and caught the glint of starlight on the barrel of his pistol. "I shouldn't think you'd care for adventures as much as some other people would,--well, as my father would or the man who lives across the street from us."

Gregory clapped his hand on Jack's knee. "That's just the puzzle of it," he said. "You never can tell who are the real adventurers. Most boys are; but when they grow up they forget the taste and smell of adventure. They don't want to think of any pirates stealing up the Delaware. They don't want to have any pirates anywhere."

"I like pirates," announced Peter.

"Of course you do," said Gregory, clapping his free hand on Peter's knee. "So do I. I like to think there's a chance of those frigates pointing up the river any minute. But most of the people in town would say I was mad if I told them that. They'd say it was because I hadn't anything to lose. It's riches that make folks cautious."

"I see a light down there!" exclaimed Peter, pointing down the shore.

All three jumped up and peered through the darkness. The light proved to be a lantern in the bow of a small skiff skirting the bank. "That's not the frigates," said Gregory. "I almost hoped it was. Well, I don't suppose the safety of Philadelphia depends on our keeping watch any longer to-night. It's getting late. Come on, my brave adventurers."

Back to town they went, and said good-night to Gregory. As Jack passed the governor's house he saw a familiar figure standing at the front gate. The stout Mr. Hackett likewise recognized Jack. "So you've not fled from town like the rest?" said the man from Maryland. "The governor's called the men to meet him to-morrow in the field on Locust Street; but I misdoubt if there'll be many left to join him."

"There's one who will be there," answered Jack, pointing down the street after Gregory.

"Who's that?" inquired Mr. Hackett.

"Gregory Diggs, the shoemaker. He's got a gun and a pistol, and he won't run away."

"The little shoemaker?" said Mr. Hackett. "So he's a fighting man, is he? I've always liked him, but I didn't know he had so much spirit."

"He's a real adventurer," declared Jack. "He thinks it may be because he's poor and hasn't any family; but I don't think that's it. I think he couldn't help being that way anyhow. I want to be like him when I grow up."

"Good for you!" exclaimed Mr. Hackett. "Then I suppose we may count on having you at the governor's muster to-morrow."

"I'll be there," said Jack. "I'm big enough to handle a gun."

"I'll be there too," put in Peter, who had been listening to the talk with the greatest interest.

"Good enough," said Mr. Hackett. "Gregory and you boys ought to put some of these smug people to shame. I'll look for you at the meeting in the morning."

III

Jack and Peter were at the meeting-place on Locust Street next morning, although each only brought a heavy stick as his weapon of defense. Jack's father had refused to let his son have the musket, saying that he would be much more apt to harm himself with it than to injure an enemy. Mrs. Black had not only forbidden Peter to handle anything that would shoot, but had intimated that she thought Governor Evans and all the people who went to his militia meeting were behaving much more like savages than like good Christians. So the boys had to put up with the hickory sticks for weapons, though each carried a sling and a pocketful of pebbles, which might be useful for long-distance fighting.

Gregory was there with his gun, and the three friends stood under the shade of a maple and waited for the rest of the volunteer army to appear. A few men and boys were lounging out in the road, apparently more interested in watching what was going to happen than in taking part in it. "Where are our gallant soldiers?" said Gregory, with a grin.

Jack counted the men who had come, with their muskets, into the field. "Six besides us," he announced.

"That'll make a good-sized army," said Gregory, a twinkle in his eye.

There were only the six others at the meeting-place when Governor Evans, his secretary, and Mr. Hackett arrived. The governor looked disgusted. He muttered to his two companions. Then he beckoned the seven men and the two boys toward him. "So this is Philadelphia's volunteer militia, is it?" he said. "These are the troops I could count on to defend our homes from an enemy?" Then his angry brow softened. "I don't blame you, my good friends. You are doing your best. But I shouldn't like to express my opinion of your fellow-townsfolk."

The governor turned to Hackett "I might as well disband the militia, eh? The night-watchmen of the town will furnish as good defense."

"Unless you choose to keep your army of seven men and two boys to shame the worthy citizens," suggested Hackett.

"You can't shame them!" snorted Governor Evans. "Their heads are made of pillow-slips stuffed with feathers; and goose-feathers at that!" He looked again at the volunteer soldiers. "My secretary will take your names," he said, "and I'll know who to call on if I need help. Many thanks to you all."

As they were leaving the field Hackett came over to Gregory and the two boys. "I suspected your good people would act like this," said he. "Though I'd no idea that only seven men would put in an appearance. I'll have to wash my hands of your Quaker colony. I never saw anything to equal it. The Saints keep you from trouble! I doubt if you'll be able to keep yourselves out of it."

Now Gregory was a little nettled at the other's superior manner. "We've been able to keep out of it so far," he retorted, "and I don't see but what charity toward others mayn't keep us out of it in the future. William Penn is a just man, and has bade us act justly toward all others. We hoped to leave fighting and all warlike things behind us when we left Europe. Because there's been fighting in Massachusetts and Virginia is no reason why there should be such matters here."

"So you think Penn's colony is different from the others, do you?" asked Hackett.

"I think you and your Cavalier friends in Maryland are more eager to draw your swords than we are here," said the shrewd shoemaker.

"Now, by Jupiter, I think you're right!" agreed Hackett, with a laugh. "Every man to his own kind. I much prefer Lord Baltimore to your good William Penn. I've seen enough of your worthy Quaker tradesmen. I must get back to Chesapeake Bay."

Jack and Peter, sitting on the steps of Mr. Felton's house that afternoon, saw a number of men who worked on the river-front go past in the street, guns in their hands. There were five or six in the first group, then a few more, then a larger number. There were small farmers from the southern side of the town, there were servants, there were negroes. None of those who went by appeared to be of the wealthy, Quaker class. "Where are they going?" Jack asked presently.

"Let's go find out," suggested Peter.

The boys followed the groups, which grew in size as men from other streets joined in the current. They went to Society Hill on the outskirts of the town. There a crowd had already gathered, some with firearms, some without. The boys pushed their way through the crowd until they reached the front edge. There they heard one speaker after another addressing the throng. The speakers all declared that they would go to the governor, ask for weapons, and tell him they were ready to march against the enemy whenever he should give the order.

Nearly seven hundred men met on Society Hill that day and volunteered for military service. Perhaps the word had gone around that the leading men of the colony had failed to meet the governor, and these men meant to show that there were some at least he could rely on. However that was, this gathering shamed the other meeting, and when it broke up it sent its delegates to report to Governor Evans.

The boys stopped to tell Gregory Diggs what they had seen.

"Aye," said Gregory, when he had heard the type of men who made up this second meeting, "wealth and position make men timid. And then Quakers are over-cautious folk. I know how it is. I found it hard enough to shoulder my gun and make up my mind to join the militia. Like as not I wouldn't have volunteered at all if you two boys hadn't seemed to shame me into it. But that's the way it is, our good, respectable folk won't fight, and the only ones the governor can rely on are the poor and the down-at-heels, and a penniless shoemaker and two boys. Master Hackett was right about Penn's province."

At his home Jack told his father of the day's happenings. "And I'm very much surprised our friends and neighbors didn't help Governor Evans better," he concluded.

"Only seven at one meeting, and a great many at the other?" said Mr. Felton. "Well, that shows our friends aren't very warlike, doesn't it, Jack?"

"But I think they ought to be," protested the boy.

"So does Governor Evans," agreed Mr. Felton. "And it's my opinion that he and that truculent friend of his, Charles Hackett, planned this whole scare just to see how warlike the people of Philadelphia are. I think he arranged to have that messenger arrive from Maryland with that story about the French frigates. It's true enough they landed at Lewes, but they did little harm there beyond taking a few cattle and some wood and water they needed. I don't believe they had the slightest intention of coming up the river to Philadelphia. But it gave the governor a good chance to see what the people would do if the French had been coming."

"Most of the people believed it, or they wouldn't have hidden their valuables, and so many of them run away," said Jack.

"Oh, yes, they believed it," assented Mr. Felton. "And I guess the governor is thoroughly out of temper with most of us. But as a matter of fact he didn't need any militia to protect us from a raid."

That was the truth of the situation, as Philadelphia found out a few days later. The governor had laid a plot to find out what the people would do if their town were threatened with attack by an enemy. He thought that the Delaware River was insufficiently protected. He wanted to form a strong militia. His ruse had worked; but to his disgust he found that the more respectable and wealthy part of the community, the Quaker portion, had no wish either to strengthen the defenses of the Delaware or to enroll in a militia. His stratagem had at least taught him that much about them.

The Quakers brought the goods they had hidden back to town; those who had gone into the country returned to their homes as soon as it was known that the French frigates had sailed down the Delaware to the sea instead of up it to Philadelphia. They did not like Governor Evans for the trick he had played on them. As the governor himself said, "For weeks afterward they would stand on the other side of the street and make faces at me as I passed by."

As a result of the governor's stratagem most of the Quakers in Philadelphia signed a petition to William Penn, who was then in England, urging him to remove Evans from the governorship. William Penn did not like to do this. He had appointed Evans at the suggestion of some very powerful men at the English Court, and he did not want to antagonize them, or Evans himself for that matter, for so slight a cause. He wrote a letter to Evans, however, mildly reproving him for the trick he had played, and making it clear that he himself was no more in favor of warlike measures than were the Quakers in his colony. Governor Evans held his office for almost three years after this event, and was finally called back to England for very different reasons.

Penn's province did have less warfare than the neighboring colonies, partly because of the just way in which Penn and his settlers dealt with the Indians, partly by good fortune. No enemy attacked Philadelphia. But as men pushed out into the country west of the Delaware they began to come into conflict with the Indians. Often these settlers were able to protect themselves, but sometimes they felt that the men living securely in Philadelphia ought to help them in their effort to enlarge the province. After the defeat of the English General Braddock by French and Indians in western Pennsylvania the settlers found the Indians more difficult to handle. So the men of the frontier formed independent companies of riflemen and fought in their own fashion. They demanded, however, that the governor and General Assembly at Philadelphia should aid them with supplies, if they were unwilling to furnish soldiers.

The Assembly in Philadelphia refused to send the supplies. The news spread along the border, and the settlers, the mountaineers and trappers, set out for the Quaker city on the Delaware. Four or five hundred of them marched into town, men clad in buckskin, their hair worn long, armed with rifles, powder-horns, bullet-pouches, hunting-knives, and even tomahawks they had taken from Indians. Philadelphia was used to seeing a few of such hunters on her streets, but the good people grew uneasy at the appearance of so many of them at one time. The mountaineers swaggered and blustered as they passed the quiet Quakers. They let it be known that if the Assembly refused to vote them the supplies they wanted they would take supplies wherever they could find them.

Pressed by the frontiersmen, the Assembly finally voted the supplies. Then the men in buckskin went back to hold the borders against the Indians.

Later, however, Philadelphia received another visit from much more unruly mountaineers. A large number of these men, known as the Paxton boys, met a battalion of British regulars at Lancaster, demanded the latter's horses and ammunition wagons, and told them that "if they fired so much as one shot their scalps would ornament every cabin from the Susquehanna to the Ohio."

The regulars didn't fire, and the mountaineers helped themselves to everything they wanted and set out for Philadelphia. Some Indians were being held as prisoners in the town, and the Paxton boys, growing insolent with power as they saw British regulars and Quaker farmers yielding to their orders, determined to make the people of Philadelphia give the Indians to them. The mountaineers marched to the high ground of Germantown, north of the town, nearly a thousand in number, and sent their envoys to the town officers. The officers knew, quite as well as Governor Evans had known before, that there was no militia sufficient to take the field against the frontiersmen, and that the citizens would never arm against them. The leading people of the town went to talk with the Paxton boys, trying to persuade them to leave peacefully. Finally by agreeing to give the mountaineers everything they asked, except only the opportunity to massacre the captive Indians, the townspeople succeeded in persuading their unwelcome visitors to leave. For long, however, the men of the frontiers and the mountains looked on the people who dwelt along the Delaware as a cowardly race, who had to be bullied before they would do their share in protecting the province.

The governors of Pennsylvania were not always as fair in dealing with their neighbors as the people were. When John Penn, grandson of William Penn, held the office of governor he sent a gang of rascals to attack men from Connecticut who had settled in the Wyoming Valley, which was claimed by Penn as part of his province. The settlers had built homes and planted crops in the Wyoming Valley, and they had no intention of letting John Penn's mercenary troopers despoil them without a fight. They built a fort, and defied the governor's soldiers. John Penn's men had finally to retreat before their stubborn resistance.

The attack on the Wyoming settlers was in 1770, and only five years later the men of Lexington and Concord fired the shots that were to echo from New Hampshire to Georgia. In the war that followed Pennsylvania did her part. Philadelphia, then the leading city of the colonies, became the home of the new government. In the very street where Governor Evans had urged the townsfolk to organize a militia to fight a few French frigates, men went to Independence Hall to proclaim a Declaration of Independence against the king of England. No one could have accused Philadelphia in July, 1776, of a lack of patriotic spirit. The Liberty Bell rang out its message to all, to the Quaker descendants of William Penn's first settlers as well as to those of other faiths who had come to his province since, and all alike responded to its appeal to proclaim liberty throughout the world.

VIII

THE PIRATES OF CHARLES TOWN HARBOR

(_South Carolina, 1718_)

I

Antony Evans was rowing slowly round the southern point of Charles Town, the bow of his boat pointing out across the broad expanse of water that lay to the east. It was early morning of a bright summer day, and the harbor looked very inviting, the breeze freshening it with little dancing waves of deep blue, tipped with silver, and bringing the salt fragrance of the ocean to the sunlit town. Deep woods ringed the bay; here and there tall, stately palmettos standing out on little headlands, looking like sentries stationed along the shore to keep all enemies away.

Antony loosened his shirt at the throat and rolled his sleeves higher up on his sunburned arms. He had finished school a few days before, and was to have a fortnight's holiday before starting work in his father's warehouse. He loved the water, the two rivers that held his home-town in their wide-stretched arms; the little creeks that wound into the wilderness, teeming with fish and game; the wide bay, and the open ocean. His idea of a holiday was to fish or swim, row or sail, and he meant to spend every day of his vacation on the water. In the bow of his boat was a tin box, and in that box were bread and cold meat and cake, and a bottle of milk--his lunch, and possibly his supper too.

Slowly the town receded across the gleaming water. It grew smaller and smaller as Antony watched it from his boat, until it looked to him like a mere handful of toy houses instead of the largest settlement in His Majesty's colony of South Carolina. He half-shut his eyes and rested on his oars, letting the wind and the waves gently rock his boat. Now Charles Town became a mere point, a spot of color on the long, level stretch of green. He opened his eyes and looked over his shoulder at the wide expanse of blue. Then he pulled toward the southern shore, planning to follow it for a time. There would be more shade there as the sun grew warmer.

The depths of the woods looked very cool and inviting as he rowed along close to them. Great festoons of gray moss hung from the boughs of the live-oaks, festoons that were pink or pale lavender where the sun shone on them. He paddled along slowly, letting the water drip from the blades of his oars, until the town had disappeared around the curve of the forest and he was alone with the waves and the trees.

The sun, almost directly overhead, and his appetite, presently suggested to him that it was time for lunch. He chose a little bay with a sandy beach, and running his boat aground, landed, carrying the precious tin box with him. There was a comfortable mossy seat under a big palmetto, and here he ate part of his provisions, and then, rolling his coat into a pillow, prepared to take a nap. The air was full of spices from the woods, warm and sleep-beguiling; he had slept an hour before he waked, stretched his rested muscles, and went back to the boat.

He had a mind to do a little exploring along this southern shore. The water was smooth, and he felt like rowing. Rapidly he traveled along the shore, peering into bays and inlets, covering long stretches of thick forest, while the sun made his westward journey, the air grew cooler, and the shade stretched farther across the sea. There would be a moon to see him home again, and he was weatherwise enough to know that he had nothing to fear from the wind.

The sun was almost setting when the rowboat rounded a wooded point and swung into a bay. Antony was following the shore-line, so he did not bother to look around, but pulled steadily ahead, keeping about the same distance from the bank. Then, to his great surprise, a voice directly ahead hailed him. "Look where you're going, son! Ease up a bit on your oars, and you'll get to us without bumping."

He looked around and saw three men fishing from a boat. They must have kept very quiet not to have attracted his attention. He slowed the speed of his boat by dragging his oars in the water, but even so he swept pretty close to the fishermen, and one of them, with a quick turn of his own oar, brought the larger boat side-on to Antony's.

"Pull in your oar," the man ordered. To avoid a collision Antony obeyed. The man caught the gunwale of Antony's boat, bringing the two side by side.

All three of the men were grinning. "Well, now, lad," said the man at the oars, "where were ye bound at such a pace? Going to row across the ocean or down to St. Augustine? Bound out from Charles Town, weren't ye?"

Antony smiled. "I was doing a little exploring," he answered. "I didn't know there were any fishermen down along here."

The man's grin widened. "Ye didn't, eh? Well, there's quite a lot of us fishermen down along here. Take a look." He gestured over his shoulder with his thumb. Antony turned and saw that at the other end of the bay were a number of boats, men on the beach, and that the hull and spars of a good-sized ship stood out beyond the trees of the next headland.

The man in the bow of the other boat, a slim, dark fellow with a straggling black mustache, pulled in his fishing-line. "An' now you've done your exploring, you'll make us a little visit. It wouldn't do to go right back to Charles Town to-night." He stood up, and with the agility of a cat stepped from his boat to Antony's and sat down on the stern-seat.

Antony had plenty of nerve, but somehow neither the words of the man at the oars nor the performance of the dark fellow was altogether reassuring. The two men now in the other boat were big swarthy chaps, with many strange designs tattooed on their brawny arms; and the one who sat in the stern wore gilded earrings and had a good-sized sheath-knife fastened to his belt. They didn't look like the men he was used to seeing about Charles Town.

They weren't disagreeable, however. The man at the oars gave Antony's boat a slight shove, which sent them some distance apart, and then dropped his fishing-line into the water again. "See you two later," he said, still grinning. "Keep an eye on the lad, Nick."

Nick sat leaning forward, his arms on his knees, his black eyes twinkling at Antony. "Don't you be feared of this nest," said he. "I don't say that some mightn't well be, but not a lively young limb like you. What's your name?"

Antony told him. "And why might some be afraid?" he asked, his curiosity rising.

"Because," said Nick, "that sloop round the point belongs to old man Teach, and she flies a most uncommon flag at her masthead."

"Blackbeard!" exclaimed the boy, his eyes wide with surprise and sudden fear.

"Now don't be scared," said Nick. "Some do call him Blackbeard, but he don't make trouble if he's handled right."

"They said he was down around the Indies, after Spanish ships," said Antony.

"He's been in a good many places," said the other. "Spanish galleys pay well, but trade's trade, wherever you find it."

This Nick was a pleasant fellow, with nothing piratical-looking about him, unless you considered the skull and crossbones tattooed on his right forearm as a sign of his trade. He smiled in a very friendly fashion. "We've got a little matter on hand now that brings us up to Charles Town. Some of the crew's sick, and we want drugs and other things for 'em." He chuckled, as though the notion was amusing. "Pirates get sick just like other folks sometimes," he added. He pointed to the beach ahead of him. "Row us up there, Tony."

There was nothing for Antony to do but obey, and somewhat assured by the mild manner of Nick, he pulled at his oars until the boat grounded in shallow water. "Don't mind a little wetting, do ye?" said Nick, stepping over the side. Antony followed, and they drew the boat high and dry on the shore. "Come along," said Nick, and he turned to lead the way.

Men were working on a couple of overturned skiffs, men were lounging about doing nothing, men who looked nowise different from the fellows Antony saw in his own town. They paid no particular attention to him, and Nick led him along the shore through the woods that covered the headland, and out on the other side. Here was a snug harbor, with a good-sized ship at anchor, men on the shore and more men on the ship's deck.

Nick shoved a small boat into the water, motioned to Antony to climb in, and with a few strokes brought them to the ship's side. He made the boat fast, and climbed a short rope-ladder to the deck. "Don't be scared," he muttered; "he don't eat boys." He led the way to where a stocky man with a heavy black beard sat in a chair smoking a long pipe.

"Here's a lad," said Nick, nodding to the chief, "we picked up as he was rowing down along the coast from Charles Town. He wanted a taste of salt air, and something better to do than what he'd been doing. And we didn't want him to go back home and tell what he'd seen down here."

Blackbeard was certainly black, and there was a scar on one side of his face that didn't add to the beauty of his appearance, but he wasn't ferocious-looking, not as fierce in fact as several men Antony knew at home. He puffed at his pipe a minute before he spoke.

"We're going up to the town to-morrow morning," he said. "What's the talk about us there?"

"They thought you were chasing Spanish ships from Cuba and St. Augustine," answered Antony, "and I think they were pretty glad you were doing it."

"They were, eh?" snorted Blackbeard. "That's always the way of it! Fight the enemy and you're a hero, but don't for the love of Heaven come near us. Smooth-faced rascals all! Keep an eye on him, Nick," and he jerked his head to show that the audience was over.

"Not so terrible, was he?" said Nick, as they went aft. "Now I'll show you some folks you know." They came to the window of the cabin, and he indicated that he wanted Antony to look inside. Half a dozen men and a couple of small boys were in the cabin, a most disconsolate-looking lot. To his great surprise Antony recognized the nearest as Mr. Samuel Wragg, a prominent merchant of Charles Town. The faces of all the others were familiar to him. "What's Mr. Wragg doing there?" he demanded. "He isn't a pirate, too?"

"No, he's no pirate," chuckled Nick. "He's what you might call a hostage. You see, all that merry-looking crowd sailed from your town a few days ago, bound for England, but we met their ship when she reached the bar and we asked 'em to come on board us. Thought we might be able to accommodate 'em better, you see. We overhauled eight ships within a week out there, and that's pretty good business, better than what we've done with your Spanish Dons lately. But there's no denying the Dons do carry the richer cargoes."

"And what are you going to do with them?" asked Antony.

"That's for old Teach, the chief there, to make out. I've a notion your friend Mr. Wragg and the others in there are going to help us get that store of drugs and supplies I was telling you of. Let's be going ashore. I don't want those mates of mine to eat all the fresh fish before we get back to 'em."

Blackbeard's men--pirates and desperadoes though they were--seemed no rougher to Antony than any other seafaring men he had met at Charles Town. They carried more pistols and knives perhaps than such men, but though he listened eagerly he heard no strange ear-splitting oaths nor frightening tales of evil deeds they had committed. Nick looked after him almost like an older brother, saw that he had plenty to eat, helped him gather up wood for the fire they lighted on the shore after supper. There were a number of these small fires, each with a group of swarthy-faced men round it. As Big Bill, the man who had first hailed Antony and caught the gunwale of his boat, explained, "Blackbeard's men were glad to stretch their legs ashore whenever they got the chance."

Their pipes lighted, the pirates sat about the campfires as the moon flooded the sea with sparkling silver. Nick told Antony how he had run away from his English home in Devon when he was a boy, and had shipped on board a merchantman out of Bristol. He had followed the sea year in, year out, until one day the captain of his ship had suddenly given up being a peaceful merchantman and had begun to hold up and rob any well-laden vessels he happened to meet. There was more profit in such a life, he said, and a great deal more excitement. Then he went on to tell Antony that many great sea-captains had really been pirates, and that both the people in England and the American colonists really liked the pirates as long as they preyed on Spanish commerce and the ships of enemies. King Charles the Second of England, he said, though he pretended to frown on piracy, had actually made Morgan, the greatest pirate of them all, a knight, and appointed him governor of his island of Jamaica. "In most seaport towns," said Nick, "the townsfolk are glad enough to have us walk their streets, spend our Mexican doubloons, and sell them the silks and wine we bring in, without asking any questions about where we got 'em. We're as good as any other traders then; maybe better, because we don't haggle so over a bargain. But when we hold up one o' their own precious ships they sing a song about us from t'other side their mouths."

So he talked on, boastfully enough, about the doings of the sea-rovers; but the boy, listening intently, thought that every now and then it sounded as if the dark man were making excuses for himself and his mates.

The fires burned down, and most of the men hunted soft beds under the forest trees. The summer night was warm, and the air was fresher here than in the close bunks on the ship. Big Bill and Nick and Antony found a comfortable place for themselves. "You might take it into your head to run away," said Nick, "but Big Bill and I always sleep with one eye open, and there's a couple of men by the boats that'll see anything stirring, and there's a big marsh through the woods, so you'll do better to stay where you be. And if they should catch you trying to take French leave, I'm afraid they'd put you in that stuffy cabin along with your friend Mr. Wragg and the others. So my advice to ye is, get a good night's sleep."

Antony took the advice so far as lying still went, though it was not nearly so easy to fall asleep. He watched the moon through the tree-tops, he listened to the lapping of the water on the shore, and he thought how strange it was that he should actually be a prisoner of the pirates. He thought of his father and mother and hoped they weren't worried about him; he had stayed away from home overnight before, camping out in the woods, and probably they wouldn't begin to worry about him until next day. Then he fell asleep, and when he woke the sun was rising over the water, and the woods were full of the early morning songs of birds.

"Yeo ho for a swim!" cried Nick, jumping up. He and Antony plunged into the water, swam for half an hour, came out and lay in the sun, drying off, put on their clothes, and went on board the ship, where, in the galley, they found the cooks had breakfast ready.

Soon afterward there was work to be done preparatory to weighing anchor. The small boats were brought on board, the crew set the sails, orders rang from bow to stern. Blackbeard was no longer a quiet man smoking a pipe in a chair. He was very alert and active, overseeing everything, and when he snapped out a word, or even jerked his thumb this way or that, men jumped to do his bidding. The anchor was hoisted aboard, the ship slowly turned from her harbor and sought the channel.

With a fresh favoring wind the ship set in toward Charles Town. Antony, on the forward deck with Nick, watched the shore-line until the bright roofs of the little settlement began to stand out from the green and blue. Farther and farther on Blackbeard sailed until they were in full view of the town. Then he called a half-dozen men by name, among them Nick, and gave them his orders. "Man the long-boat," said he, "and row ashore. Send this note to the governor. It's a list of drugs I want for my crew. And tell the governor and Council that if the drugs don't come back to me in three hours I'll send another boat ashore with the heads of Samuel Wragg and his son and a dozen other men of Charles Town. Their heads or the drugs! Look to the priming of your pistols." Blackbeard was a man of few words, but every word he spoke told.

As the others swung the long-boat overboard Nick stepped up to the chief. "I'll take the boy along," said he. "He might help us ashore, as he knows the people there." Blackbeard nodded.

An idea occurred to Antony, and whispering to Nick, he darted to the galley. He found a scrap of paper there, and scrawled a couple of lines to his father, saying he was well, and begging his parents not to worry about him. As he ran back by the cabin he couldn't help glancing in at the window, and saw Samuel Wragg and the other prisoners whispering together, their frightened faces seeming to show that they had heard what was in the wind, and knew that Blackbeard meant to have their heads in case their friends in Charles Town should refuse to let him have the drugs he wanted.

The long-boat was now manned and floating lightly on the bay. At a word from Nick, Antony swung himself over the side of the ship by a rope and dropped into the boat, "You steer us," said Nick, "and mind you don't get us into any trouble, or overboard you go as sure as my name's Nicholas Carter."

The harbor was smooth as glass and the long-boat, pulled by its lusty crew, shot along rapidly. Nick was pulling the stroke oar, and presently Antony, who sat opposite him, took the little note he had written from his pocket. "If you go ashore, won't you give this paper to somebody?" he begged. "My father's name's on the outside, and everybody knows him. It'll make his mind easier about me."

Nick bobbed his head. "Slip it into my pocket," he murmured, nodding to where his jacket lay on the bottom of the boat.

The town was right before them now, its quays busy with the usual morning life of the water-front. To Antony, however, it seemed that more men and boys than usual were standing there, some watching the long-boat, and others looking past her at the big ship far down the bay. He saw faces he knew, he saw men staring at him wonderingly, he even felt rather proud at the strange position he had so unexpectedly fallen into.

"Easy now, mates," sang out Nick, looking over his shoulder at the near water-front. He gave a few orders, and the long-boat swung gently up to an empty float, and he and the man next to him, slipping on their jackets and making sure that their pistols slid easily from their belts, stepped lightly to the float.

By now a large crowd had gathered on the shore, all staring at the strangers. Nick and his fellow-pirate, cool as cucumbers, walked up the plank that led from the float to the dock. There Nick made a little mocking bow to the men and boys of Charles Town. "Who's governor here?" he demanded, with the assurance of an envoy from some mighty state.

Several voices answered, "Robert Johnson is the governor."

Nick took from an inner pocket the paper Blackbeard had given him. "One of you take this message to Governor Robert Johnson. It comes from Captain Teach, sometimes known as Captain Blackbeard. He entertains certain merchants of your town on board his ship, Mr. Samuel Wragg and others. And should any of you harm me or my mates while we wait for the governor's answer Captain Teach will feel obliged, much to his regret, to do the same to your worthy townsmen on his ship."

There were murmurs and exclamations from the crowd, and whispers of "It's Blackbeard!" "It's the pirates!" and the like.

As no one stepped forward Nick now pointed to a man in a blue coat who stood fronting him. "Take this message," he said, and spoke so commandingly that the man stepped forward and took it. Then he beckoned a boy to him and gave him Antony's note. "For Mr. Jonas Evans," he said. "Make sure he gets it." After that he sat down on a bale of cotton, pulled out a pipe, filled it with tobacco, and lighted it. The other pirate did the same. The bright sun shone on the brace of pistols each man wore in his belt.

The man in the blue coat hurried to Governor Johnson with the message from the pirate chief. The governor read the message, demanding certain drugs at once, on pain of Samuel Wragg and the other merchants of Charles Town losing their heads. The governor sent for the Council and read the message to them. They would all have liked to tear the message to shreds and go out at once to capture this insolent sea-robber, but there was danger that if they tried to do that their worthy fellow-citizens would instantly lose their heads.

Meantime the news had spread through the town, and there was the greatest excitement. The people longed to get their hands on Blackbeard and pay him for this insult. But they dared not stir now; they dared not even lay finger on the two insolent rascals who sat on the bales of cotton on the water-front, smiling at the crowd. The families and friends of Samuel Wragg and the other prisoners, all of whom were named in Blackbeard's message to the governor, hurried to the house where the Council was meeting, and demanded that the drugs should be sent out to Blackbeard at once.

The governor and Council argued the matter up and down. They hated to yield to such a command, and yet it would be monstrous to sacrifice their friends for a few drugs. Then Governor Johnson made his decision. He reminded them that he had time and again urged the Proprietors and the Board of Trade to send out a frigate to protect the commerce of Charles Town from just such perils as this; and added that it was his duty to protect the lives of all the citizens. He would send the drugs, and then the Council must see to it that such a situation shouldn't occur again.

All the medicines on Blackbeard's list were carried down to the float and put on board the long-boat under Nicholas Carter's supervision. "I thank you all in the name of Captain Teach," Nick said, smiling and bowing in his best manner. Among the crowd on shore Antony had caught the faces of his father and mother, and waved to them, and called out that he would soon be back.

The long-boat left the shore amid angry mutterings from the people. The tide was low now, and presently Antony, by mischance, mistook the course of the channel, and ran the boat aground. He showed so plainly, however, that he hadn't meant to do it, that Nick forgave him, and said he wouldn't throw him overboard. It took some time for the crew to get the boat afloat again, and when they finally reached the ship they found Blackbeard in a terrible rage at the delay and almost on the point of beheading Mr. Wragg and the other prisoners.

The sight of the drugs calmed his anger somewhat, and he ordered his captives brought out on deck. There he had them searched, and took everything of value they had with them, among other things a large amount of gold from Mr. Wragg. Some of their clothes he took also, so that it was hard to say whether the poor merchants were shivering more from fright or from cold. Then he had them rowed in the long-boat to a neighboring point of land, where they were left to make their way home as best they could.

Antony had asked Nick if he couldn't be set on shore with the others, but Nick, drawing him away from the rest of the crew, had whispered, "Stay with me a day or two more. I'm going to leave the ship myself. I'm tired of this way of living, and I'd like to have a friend to speak a good word for me when I land. I'll see no harm comes to you, boy. I got that note to your father, and--one good turn deserves another. We'll leave old Blackbeard soon."

Antony liked the dark man. "All right," said he. "I think we can get into Charles Town without any one knowing who you are. I'll look out for you."

"Much obliged to you, Tony," said Nick, with a grin.

So when the pirate ship sailed out to sea again, Antony was still on board her.

II

Five days Antony stayed on board the pirate ship, while Blackbeard doctored the sick men of his crew with the medicines he had obtained in Charles Town. The boy was well treated, for it was understood that he was under Nick's protection, and moreover, although the pirates could show their teeth and snarl savagely enough in a fight, they were friendly and easy-going among themselves. It was a pleasant cruise for Antony, for the weather held good, and Nick taught him much about the handling of a ship. Then, after five days of sailing, Blackbeard anchored off one of the long sandy islands that dot that coast, and those of his men who were tired of their small quarters on the ship went ashore and spent the night there. Among them were Nick and Antony, and, as on that other night ashore, they made their beds at a little distance from the others.

Just before dawn Antony was waked by some one pulling his shoulder. It was Nick, who signaled to him that he should rise noiselessly and follow him. The boy obeyed, and the two went silently through the woods and came out on another beach as the sun was rising. They walked for some time, watching the wonderful colors the sun was sending over sea and sky. Then said Nick, "We're far enough away from them now. They won't hunt for us; they've more than enough crew, and old Teach ain't the man to bother his head about a couple of runaways. Five minutes of curses, and he'll be up and away again, with never a thought of us. I'll beat you to the water, Tony," and Nick started to pull his shirt over his head.

They swam as long as they wanted, and then they followed the shore, growing more and more hungry as they went along. "There must be fishermen somewhere," said Nick. "A little farther south, and we'd have fruit for the taking; but here"--he shrugged his shoulders--"nothing but a few berries that rattle around in one like peas in a pail."

After an hour, however, they came to a fisherman's shanty, and found the owner working with his nets and lines on the shore. He was a big man, with reddish hair and beard, and clothes that had been so often soaked in salt water that they had almost all the colors of the rainbow. "We'll work all day for food and drink," said Nick, grinning.

The fisherman grinned in return. "Help yourselves," said he, waving his hand toward his shanty. "You're welcome to what you find; I got my gold and silver safe hid away."

They found dried fish and corn-meal cakes and water in an earthen jar. When they came out to the beach again they told the man their names, and learned in turn that his was Simeon Park. They went out with him in his sailing-smack, and fished all day, and when they came back they felt like old friends, as men do who spend a day together on the sea.

There followed a week of fishing with Simeon, varied by mornings when they went hunting ducks and wild turkeys and geese with him over the marshes and the long flats that lay along the coast. Antony had never had a better time; he liked both of his new friends, and, except for his father and mother, he was in no hurry to go back to Charles Town and work in the warehouse there. At the end of the week Simeon Park suggested that they should take the smack for a cruise, fishing and gunning as chance offered. So they put to sea again, this time in a much smaller vessel than Blackbeard's merchantman.

They met with one small gale, but after that came favoring winds. Presently they found themselves near Charles Town harbor again. They camped on shore one night, and Antony told Nick that he must be heading for home shortly.

Next morning the boy was waked by the big fisherman, who pointed out to sea. Three big ships were standing off the coast, and even at that distance they could see that the "Jolly Roger" of a pirate, the skull and crossbones, flew from the masthead of the biggest vessel. Guns boomed across the water. "The two sloops are after the big fellow," exclaimed Simeon Park. "Let's put out in our boat, and have a look at the game."

They put off in their smack, and with the skilful fisherman at the helm, stood off and on, tacked and ran before the wind, until they came to a point where they were out of shot and yet near enough to see all that was taking place.

"I can read the names of the sloops," said Park, squinting across at their sterns; "one's called _Sea Nymph_ and t'other the _Henry_, and they both hail from Charles Town."

Nick chuckled. "That governor of yours," he said to Antony, "didn't lose much time. He's got two sloops of war now for certain, and he means to try a tussle with the rovers." He too squinted at the vessels. "I don't think she's Blackbeard's, howsomever. No, there's her name." And he spelled out the words _Royal James_.

The two sloops, each mounting eight guns, had swept down on the pirate, evidently planning to catch her in a narrow strait formed by two spits of land. But the pirate ship, undaunted, had sought to sail past the sloops, and by her greater speed to gain the open sea. Then the two sloops bore in close, and before the _Royal James_ knew what she was about she had sailed out of the channel and was stuck fast on a shoal of sand. Then the _Henry_, too, grounded in shoal water, and some distance further, her mate, the _Sea Nymph_.

This was a pretty situation, all three ships aground, and only the little fishing-smack able to sail about as she liked. "Lucky we don't draw more'n a couple of feet of water," said Simeon Park, at the helm. "If we only had a gun of our own aboard we could hop about and pepper first one, then t'other."

"And have one good round shot send us to the bottom as easy as a man crushes a pesky mosquito," observed Nick. "No, thankee. If it's all the same to you I'd rather keep out of gun-fire of both sides to this little controversy."

Antony, crouched on the small deck forward, was too busy watching what was going on to consider the likelihood of his boat going aground.