The Jolly Roger Tales: 60+ Pirate Novels, Treasure-Hunt Tales & Sea Adventures. Лаймен Фрэнк Баум

till I overtook your ship, Ed'ard Teach. Each night you'll see me walk the plank from your quarter-deck."

      The unhappy Blackbeard gibbered something and would have fled as the spirits approached him. But those bandy legs tottered and before he could turn the awful visitants were upon him. One raised a round shot above his head, or so it appeared to be, and smote him full upon the crown. The other whirled a flat bludgeon and hit him on the jaw. With the smell of brimstone was mingled the pungent flavor of ripe cheese and salt-fish. Blackbeard measured his length, and the ghost of Jesse Strawn delayed an instant to dump a pot of sizzling combustibles over him.

      Then the spirits twain made for the cabin at top speed. Several of the crew had rushed down to harken to the strange disturbance. They scattered wildly at the first glimpse of these phantoms, being superstitious sailormen with many a wicked deed to answer for. It flashed into Joe Hawkridge's mind that all the men of the watch might be chased below, the hatches clapped on them, and the mastery of the brig secured. Blackbeard was absent for reasons best known to himself and his pirates lacked leadership. A brace of ghosts could put them to panic rout. And, no doubt, that wailing message of dead Jesse Strawn had carried like the cry of a banshee.

      The poop was deserted in the twinkling of an eye, even to the pair of helmsmen and the officer of the watch. Against the sky of night the unwelcome phantoms were wan and luminous while the groans which issued from them were enough to curdle the blood of the brawniest pirate. He who had been Jack Cockrell in mortal guise was quick to slide the cabin hatch closed and fasten it. For the moment they had captured the armed brig Royal James and as ferocious a crew of rascals as ever scuttled a merchantman.

      Joe Hawkridge glided to the taffrail and peered over the stern. A boat was towing behind the ship. It had been left there for taking soundings or pulling the brig's head around while she was still in the shoaler waters near the coast. This was better than Joe had dared anticipate. Feeling his way along the rail, he found the end of the rope which was belayed around a wooden pin. Heaven be praised, they would not have to swim for it! He beckoned his comrade to say in his ear:

      "They will soon find their wits. It 'ud be foolish to try scaring 'em under hatches now that the jolly-boat floats so handy. There's hard cases amongst 'em that will begin shooting at us presently. Down the rope ye go, Jack. I'll stand by and give 'em another dose of poor Jesse Strawn."

      Over the rail flew the stouter phantom of the two and slid like a white streak, fetching up in the boat with a most earthly and substantial thump. With a farewell wail the other ghost flung a limber leg over and shot down so fast that his hands were scorched. To such pirates as beheld this instant vanishment, these disturbing spirits floated off into space. Jack cut the rope with his knife and the boat dropped back in the shining wake. They shoved out two heavy oars and fairly broke their hearts in pulling dead into the wind where the brig would have to tack to pursue them.

      The rattle of the oars and the discovery of the shorn rope's end must have convinced the pirates who ran aft that they had been tricked by mortal beings like themselves. A musket spat a red streak of fire. Blocks whined as the braces were hauled to change the brig's course. In the light breeze she responded awkwardly and soon hung in stays. Meanwhile the jolly-boat was slowly working to windward while two frightened lads tugged and swung until the flour turned to paste on their dripping faces.

      Before the brig began to forge ahead, the boat was invisible from her decks. This was evident because the spatter of musket-fire ceased. Soon the fugitives heard Blackbeard's harsh voice damning all hands. That thick skull of his had not been cracked by the impact of the solid cheese and he had been released from his brimstone inferno. The ghosts rested on their oars. They could watch the glimmering canvas of the brig and see what her procedure might be. Soon she filled away and forsook the attempt to find the boat. Blackbeard had wisdom enough to avoid blundering about and putting the brig aground in a chase so elusive as this.

      "Farewell, ye hairy son of Tophet," said Joe Hawkridge, waving his hand at the disappearing vessel. "And here's hoping I set your whiskers ablaze when I turned the pot over 'em."

      "Did you hear him swear not to touch the treasure chest, Joe? That was a master stroke of yours."

      "Aye, it was bright of me. But he thinks different now. He knows we made a booby of him."

      "But we learned one thing,—he hasn't recovered the treasure yet," suggested Jack.

      "He is such a powerful liar that I don't know as the ghost o' Jesse Strawn could budge the truth out of him. However, it was comfortin' to hear him swear it on his marrow-bones. I fetched away the navigation chart, the one I poached from the cabin table. It gives us the lay o' the coast."

      "What ho and whither bound?" was Jack's question. "Here is a sail wound round a sprit beneath the thwarts."

      "The wrong wind to head for Cap'n Bonnet and the Revenge. This swag-bellied jolly-boat handles like a firkin. We had best wait for day and then decide the voyage."

      "Nothing to eat and no water, Joe. All I can find is an empty pannikin."

      "You're a glutton," severely exclaimed young Hawkridge. "After the banquet I served in the hold!"

      What Master Cockrell said in reply sounds as familiar and as wistful to-day as when he spoke it two hundred years ago.

      "I have had enough of wandering and strange adventures, Joe. I want to go home."

      Chapter XV.

       Mr. Peter Forbes Mourns His Nephew

       Table of Contents

      It seems a long time, in the course of this story, since the honorable Secretary of the Council, Mr. Peter Arbuthnot Forbes, was forced to sail in to Charles Town from the Plymouth Adventure on that most humiliating errand of finding medicines for Blackbeard's fever-smitten rogues. For the sake of his own dear nephew and the other hostages detained on board, he had endeavored to perform his bargain and was returning across the bar when the threatening clouds and other portents of a violent storm caused the seamen to lose heart. They put about and drove back into the harbor for shelter in the very nick of time.

      These were pirates from Blackbeard's crew, it may be recalled, with his grizzled, scarred boatswain at the tiller. They had felt safe enough to swagger and ruffle it through the streets of Charles Town and to terrify the people. Their worthless lives were protected by the hostages who waited in fear and trembling. The town seethed with indignation and was hot with shame. There would be no more of the friendly traffic with pirates.

      It was fully believed that the wretched Blackbeard would be as good as his word in allowing no more than two days' grace. Therefore when Mr. Peter Forbes came back in the boat to inform his neighbors that he had been unable to reach the ship, it was sadly taken for granted that those helpless passengers had been put to death. Forthwith the pirates of the boat's crew were seized and thrown in gaol. There they lay in double irons until the Council met and ordered them to be tried. In accordance with the verdict the six seamen and the boatswain were promptly hanged by the neck from the same gallows at White Point hard by the town. And the people no longer shivered at the name of Blackbeard nor feared his vengeance. Their fighting blood was thoroughly aroused.

      Not long after this, there arrived from England a new Governor of the Province, a man of honor and resolution who approved what had been done. This Governor Johnson proceeded to organize the town for defense, building batteries on Sullivan's Island, recruiting the seafaring men in the militia, and seeking to obtain merchant vessels which could be employed as armed cruisers. Learning that the Governor of North Carolina was in a corrupt partnership with pirates, he sent messages to Virginia to solicit coöperation.

      This activity made much work for Secretary Peter Forbes who forsook his intention of going to England to beg the coöperation of his Majesty's Government against the plague of pirates. Dapper and plump and important as of yore, his florid face was clouded with sorrow and he seemed a much older man. He mourned his nephew, Jack Cockrell, as no more and felt as though he had lost an only son. Every angry word he had ever