CHAPTER XXII
BLADE TO BLADE
When the corvette Badger sailed from Jamaica she moved among the islandsof the Caribbean Sea as if she had been a modern vessel propelled by asteam-engine. That which represented a steam-engine in this case was thefiery brain of Captain Christopher Vince of his Majesty's navy. Morethan winds, more than currents, this brain made its power felt upon thecourse and progress of the vessel.
Calling at every port where information might possibly be gained,hailing every sloop or ship or fishing-smack which might have sightedthe pirate ship Revenge, with a constant lookout for a black flag,Captain Vince kept his engine steadily at work.
But it was not in pursuit of a ship that the swift keel of the Badgercut through the sea, this way and that, now on a long course, nowdoubling back again, like a hound fancying he has got the scent of ahare, then raging wildly when he finds the scent is false; it was inpursuit of a woman that every sail was spread, that the lookout sweptthe sea, and that the hot brain of the captain worked steadily and hard.This English man-of-war was on a cruise to make Kate Bonnet the bride ofits captain. The heart of this naval lover was very steady; it was fixedin its purpose, nothing could turn it aside. Vince's plans werewell-digested; he knew what he wanted to do, he knew how he was going todo it.
In the first place he would capture the man Bonnet; all the details ofthe action were arranged to that end; then, with Kate's father as hisprisoner, he would be master of the situation.
There was nothing noble about this craftily elaborated design; but,then, there was nothing noble about Captain Vince. He was a strong haterand a strong lover, and whether he hated or loved, nothing, good or bad,must stand in his way. With the life or death, the misery or thehappiness of the father in his hands, he knew that he need but beckon tothe daughter. She might come slowly, but she would come. She was a grandwoman, but she was a woman; she might resist the warm plea of love, butshe could not resist the cold commands of that cruel figure of death whostood behind the lover.
Captain Bonnet was returning from his visit to the New England coast,picking up bits of profit here and there as fortune befell him, whenCaptain Vince first heard that the Revenge had gone northward. The newswas circumstantial and straightforward, and was not to be doubted. Vinceraged upon his quarter-deck when he found out how he had been wastingtime. Northward now was pointed the bow of the Badger, and the vengefulVince felt as if his prey was already in his hands. If Bonnet had sailedup the Atlantic coast he was bound to sail down again. It might be along cruise, there might be impatient waitings at the mouths of covesand rivers where the pirates were accustomed to take refuge or refit,but the light of the eyes of Kate Bonnet were worth the longest pursuitor the most impatient waiting.
So, steadily sailed the corvette Badger up the long Atlantic coast, andshe passed the capes of the Delaware while Captain Bonnet was examiningthe queer pulpit in the little bay-side town where his ship had stoppedto take in water.
At the various ports of the northern coast where the Revenge had sailedback and forth outside, the Badger boldly entered, and the tales sheheard soon turned her back again to sail southward down the longAtlantic coast. But the heart of Christopher Vince never failed. Thevision of Kate Bonnet as he had seen her, standing with glorious eyesdenouncing him; as he should see her when, with bowed head and profferedhand, she came to him; as all should see her when, in her clear-cutbeauty, she stood beside him in his ancestral home, never left him.
Off the port of Charles Town, South Carolina, the Badger lay and waited,and soon, from an outgoing bark, the news came to Captain Vince thatseveral weeks before the pirate Bonnet of the Revenge had taken anEnglish ship as she was entering port, and had then sailed southward.Southward now sailed the Badger, and, as there was but little wind,Captain Vince swore with an unremitting diligence.
It was a quiet morning and the Badger was nearing the straits of Floridawhen a sail was reported almost due south.
Up came Captain Vince with his glass, and after a long, long look, andanother, and another, during which the two vessels came slowly nearerand nearer each other, the captain turned to his first officer and saidquietly: "She flies the skull and bones. She's the first of thosehellish pirates that we have yet met on this most unlucky cruise."
"If we could send her, with her crew on board, ten times to the bottom,"said the other, "she would not pay us what her vile fraternity has costus. But these pirate craft know well the difference between a Spanishgalleon and a British man-of-war, and they will always give us a wideberth."
"But this one will not," said the captain.
Then again he looked long and earnestly through his glass. "Send aftthe three men who know the Revenge," said he.
Presently the men came aft, and one by one they went aloft, and sooncame the report, vouched for by each of them:
"The sail ahead is the pirate Revenge."
Now all redness left the face of Captain Vince. He was as pale as if hehad been afraid that the pirate ship would capture him, but every man onhis vessel knew that there was no fear in the soul or the body of thecaptain of the Badger. Quickly came his orders, clear and sharp;everything had been gone over before, but everything was gone overagain. The corvette was to bear down upon the pirate, her cannon--greatguns for those days, and which could soon have disabled, if they had notsunk, the smaller vessel--were muzzled and told to hold their peace. Theman-of-war was to bear down upon the pirate and to capture her byboarding. There was to be no broadside, no timber-splitting cannonballs.
The wind was light and in favour of the corvette, and slowly the twovessels diminished the few miles between them; but there was enough windto show the royal colours on the Badger.
"He is a bold fellow, that pirate," said some of the naval men, "and hewill wait and fight us."
"He will wait and fight us," said some of the others, "because hecannot get away; in this wind he is at our mercy."
Captain Vince stood and gazed over the water, sometimes with his glassand sometimes without it. Here now was the end of his fuming, hisraging, his long and untiring search. All the anxious weariness of longvoyaging, all the impatience of watching, all the irritation of waitinghad gone. The notorious vessel in which the father of Kate Bonnet hadmade himself a terror and a scourge was now almost within his reach. Thebeneficent vessel by which the father of Kate Bonnet should give to himhis life's desire was so near to him that he could have sent a musketball into her had he chosen to fire. It was so near to him that he couldnow, with his glass, read the word "Revenge" on her bow. His brows wereknit, his jaws were set tight, his muscles hardened themselves withenergy.
Again the orders were passed, that when the men of the corvette boardedthe pirate they were to cut down the rascals without mercy, and not oneof them was to draw sword or pistol against the pirate captain. He wouldbe attended to by their commander.
Vince knew the story of Stede Bonnet; he knew that early in life he hadbeen in the army, and that it was likely that he understood the handlingof a sword. But he knew also that he himself was one of the bestswordsmen in the royal navy. He yearned to cross blades with the manwhose blood should not be shed, whose life should be preservedthroughout the combat as if he were a friend and not a foe, who shouldsurrender to him his sword and give to him his daughter.
"They're a brave lot, those bloody rascals," said one of the men of theBadger.
"They've a fool of a captain," said another; "he knows not thedifference between a British man-of-war and a Spanish galleon, but weshall teach him that."
Slowly they came together, the Revenge and the Badger, the bow of onepointed east and the bow of the other to the west; from neither vesselthere came a word; the low waves could be heard flapping against theirsides. Suddenly there rang out from the man-of-war the order to makefast. The grapnels flew over the bulwarks of the pirate, and in a momentthe two vessels were as one. Then, with a great shout, the men of theBadger leaped and hurled themselves upon the deck of the Revenge, andupon that
deck and from behind bulwarks there rose, yelling and howlingand roaring, the picked men of two pirate crews, quick, furious, andstrong as tigers, the hate of man in their eyes and the love of blood intheir hearts. Like a wave of massacre they threw themselves against thedrilled masses of the Badger's crew, and with yells and oaths and cursesand cries the battle raged.
With a sudden dash the captain of the man-of-war plunged through theranks of the combatants and stood upon the middle of the deck; his quickeyes shot here and there; wherever he might be, he sought the captain ofthe pirate ship. In an instant a huge man bounded aft and made one longstep towards him. Vast in chest and shoulder, and with mighty limbs,fiery-eyed, hairy, horribly fantastic, Blackbeard stood, with great headlowered for the charge.
"A sugar-planter?" was the swift thought of Vince.
"Are you the captain of this ship?" he shouted.
"I am!" cried the other, and with a curse like bursting thunder thepirate came on and his blade crossed that of Captain Vince.
Forward and amidships surged the general fight: men plunged, swordsfell, blood flowed, feet slipped upon the deck, and roars of blasphemyand pain rose above the noise of battle. But farther aft the twocaptains, in a space by themselves, cut, thrust, and trampled, whirlingaround each other, dashing from this side and that, ever with keen eyesfirmly fixed, ever with strong arms whirling down and upward; now oneman felt the keen cut of steel and now the other. The blood ran uponrich uniform or stained rough cloth and leather. It was a fight as ifbetween a lioness and a tigress, their dead cubs near-by.
As most men in the navy knew, Captain Vince was a most dangerousswordsman. In duel or in warfare, no man yet had been able to standbefore him. With skilled arm and eye and with every muscle of his bodytrained, his sword sought a vital spot in his opponent. There was nothought now in the mind of Vince about disarming the pirate and takinghim prisoner; this terrible wild beast, this hairy monster must bekilled or he himself must die. Through the whirl and clash and hotbreath of battle he had been amazed that Kate Bonnet's father should bea man like this.
The pirate, his eyes now shrunken into his head, where they glowed likecoals, his breath steaming like a volcano, and his tremendous musclessupple and quick as those of a cat, met his antagonist at every point,and with every lunge and thrust and cut forced him to guard.
Now Vince shut himself in his armour of trained defence; this boundinglion must be killed, but the death-stroke must be cunningly delivered,and until, in his hot rage, the pirate should forget his guard Vincemust shield himself.
Never had the great Blackbeard met so keen a swordsman; he howled withrage to see the English captain still vigorous, agile, warding everystroke. Blackbeard was now a wild beast of the sea: he fought to kill,for naught else, not even his own life. With a yell he threw himselfupon Captain Vince, whose sword passed quick as lightning through thebrawny masses of his left shoulder. With one quick step, the piratepressed closer to Vince, thus holding the imprisoned blade, which stuckout behind his body, and with a tremendous blow of his right fist, inwhich he held the heavy brazen hilt of his sword, he dashed his enemybackward to the ground. The fall drew the blade from the shoulder ofBlackbeard, whose great right arm went up, whose sword hissed in the airand then came down upon the prostrate Vince. Another stroke and theEnglish captain lay insensible and still.
With the scream of a maddened Indian, Blackbeard sprung into the air,and when his feet touched the deck he danced. He would have hewn hisvictim into pieces, he would have scattered him over the decks, butthere was no time for such recreations. Forward the battle raged withtremendous fury, and into the midst of it dashed Blackbeard.
From the companion-way leading to the captain's cabin there now appeareda pale young face. It was that of Dickory Charter, who had been orderedby Blackbeard, before the two vessels came together, to shut himself inthe cabin and to keep out of the broil, swearing that if he made himselfunfit to present to Eliza he would toss his disfigured body into thesea. Entirely unarmed and having no place in the fight, Dickory hadobeyed, but the spirit of a young man which burned within him led himto behold the greater part of the conflict between Blackbeard and theEnglish captain. Being a young man, he had shut his eyes at the end ofit, but when the pirate had left he came forth quietly. The fight ragedforward, and here he was alone with the fallen figure on the deck.
As Dickory stood gazing downward in awe--in all his life he had neverseen a corpse--the man he had supposed dead opened his eyes for a momentand gazed with dull intelligence, and then he gasped for rum. Dickorywas quickly beside him with a tumbler of spirits and water, which,raising the fallen man's head, he gave him. In a few moments the eyes ofCaptain Vince opened wider, and he stared at the young man in navaluniform who stood above him. "Who are you?" he said in a low voice, butdistinct, "an English officer?"
"No," said Dickory, "I am no officer and no pirate; I am forced to wearthese clothes."
And then, his natural and selfish instincts pushing themselves beforeanything else, Dickory went on: "Oh, sir, if your men conquer thesepirates will you take me--" but as he spoke he saw that the wounded manwas not listening to him; his half-closed eyes turned towards him and hewhispered:
"More spirits!"
"Take that," he feebly said, "and swear that it shall bedelivered."]
Dickory dashed into the cabin, half-filled a tumbler with rum and gaveit to Vince. Presently his eyes recovered something of their naturalglow, and with contracted brow he fixed them upon the stream of bloodwhich was running from him over the deck.
Suddenly he spoke sharply: "Young fellow," he said, "some paper and apen, a pencil, anything. Quick!"
Dickory looked at him in amazement for a moment and then he ran into thecabin, soon returning with a sheet of paper and an English pencil.
The eyes of Captain Vince were now very bright, and a nervous strengthcame into his body. He raised himself upon his elbow, he clutched at thepaper, and clapping it upon the deck began to write. Quickly his pencilmoved; already he was feeling that his rum-given strength was leavinghim, but several pages he wrote, and then he signed his name. Foldingthe sheet he stopped for a moment, feeling that he could do no more;but, gathering together his strength in one convulsive motion, headdressed the letter.
"Take that," he feebly said, "and swear ... that it shall be ...delivered."
"I swear," said Dickory, as on his knees he took the blood-smearedletter. He hastily slipped it into the breast of his coat, and then hewas barely able to move quick enough to keep the Englishman's head fromstriking the deck.
"How now!" sounded a harsh growl at his ear. "Get you into your cabinor you will be hurt. It is not time yet for the fleecing of corpses! Iam choking for a glass of brandy. Get in and stay there!"
In another minute Blackbeard, refreshed, was running aft, the cutthrough his shoulder bleeding, but entirely forgotten.
There was no fighting now upon the deck of the Revenge; the conflictraged, but it had been transferred to the Badger. The sailors of theman-of-war had fought valiantly and stoutly, even impetuously, but theirenemies--picked men from two pirate crews--had fought like wire-muscleddevils. Ablaze with fury they had cut down the Badger's men, piling themupon their own fallen comrades; they had followed the brave fellows withoaths, cutlasses, and pistols as, little at a time and fighting all thewhile, they slowly clambered back into their own ship. The pirates hadthrown their grapnels over the bulwarks of the man-of-war; they hadfollowed, cut by cut, shot by shot, until they now stood upon theBadger, fighting with the same fury that they had just fought upon theblood-soaked Revenge. Blackbeard was not yet with them--whateverhappened, Blackbeard must be refreshed--but now he sprang into theenemy's ship--that fine British man-of-war, the corvette Badger, whichhad so bravely sailed down upon his ship to capture her--and led thecarnage.
They were tough men, those British seamen, tough in heart, tough inarms and body; they fought above decks and they fought below, and theylaid many a pirate scoundrel dead; but they had
met a foe which was toostrong for them--a pack of brawny, hairy desperadoes, picked from twopirate crews. The first officer now commanding, panting, bleeding, andtorn, groaned as he saw that his men could fight no longer, and hesurrendered the Badger to the pirates.
The great Blackbeard yelled with delight. When had any other captainsailing under the Jolly Roger captured a British man-of-war, afirst-class corvette of the royal navy? His frenzied joy was so intensethat he was on the point of cutting down the officer who was offeringhim his sword, but he withheld his hand.
"Go, somebody, and fetch me a glass of his Majesty's rum," he cried,"and I will drink to his perdition!"
The door of a locker was smashed, the spirits were brought, and thegreat Blackbeard was again refreshed.
Standing on the quarter-deck where but an hour or two before CaptainChristopher Vince had stood commanding his fine corvette as she saileddown upon her pirate enemy, Blackbeard had brought before him all thesurvivors of the Badger's crew.
"Well, you're a lot of damnable knaves," said he, "and you have cost memany a good man this day. But my crew will now be short-handed, and ifany or all of you will turn pirate and ship with me, I will let bygonespass; but, if any of you choose not that, overboard you go. I will haveno unwilling rascals in my crew."
All but one of the men of the Badger, downcast, wounded, panting withthirst and loving life, agreed to become pirates and to ship on boardthe Revenge.
The first mate would not break his oath of allegiance to the king, andhe went overboard.