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Book of Pirates-Part6_Howard Pyle(1853-1911)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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Blackbeard's opinion, and so he marooned a parcel more of



them--some eighteen or twenty--upon a naked sand bank, from which

they were afterward mercifully rescued by another freebooter who



chanced that way--a certain Major Stede Bonnet, of whom more will

presently be said. About that time a royal proclamation had been



issued offeringpardon to all pirates in arms who would surrender

to the king's authority before a given date. So up goes Master



Blackbeard to the Governor of North Carolina and makes his neck

safe by surrendering to the proclamation--albeit he kept tight



clutch upon what he had already gained.

And now we find our bold Captain Blackbeard established in the



good province of North Carolina, where he and His Worship the

Governor struck up a vast deal of intimacy, as profitable as it



was pleasant. There is something very pretty in the thought of

the bold sea rover giving up his adventurous life (excepting now



and then an excursion against a trader or two in the neighboring

sound, when the need of money was pressing); settling quietly



down into the routine of old colonial life, with a young wife of

sixteen at his side, who made the fourteenth that he had in



various ports here and there in the world.

Becoming tired of an inactive life, Blackbeard afterward resumed



his piratical career. He cruised around in the rivers and inlets

and sounds of North Carolina for a while, ruling the roost and



with never a one to say him nay, until there was no bearing with

such a pest any longer. So they sent a deputation up to the



Governor of Virginia asking if he would be pleased to help them

in their trouble.



There were two men-of-war lying at Kicquetan, in the James River,

at the time. To them the Governor of Virginia applies, and



plucky Lieutenant Maynard, of the Pearl, was sent to Ocracoke

Inlet to fight this pirate who ruled it down there so like the



cock of a walk. There he found Blackbeard waiting for him, and

as ready for a fight as ever the lieutenant himself could be.



Fight they did, and while it lasted it was as pretty a piece of

business of its kind as one could wish to see. Blackbeard drained



a glass of grog, wishing the lieutenant luck in getting aboard of

him, fired a broadside, blew some twenty of the lieutenant's men



out of existence, and totally crippled one of his little sloops

for the balance of the fight. After that, and under cover of the



smoke, the pirate and his men boarded the other sloop, and then

followed a fine old-fashioned hand-to-hand conflict betwixt him



and the lieutenant. First they fired their pistols, and then they

took to it with cutlasses--right, left, up and down, cut and



slash--until the lieutenant's cutlass broke short off at the

hilt. Then Blackbeard would have finished him off handsomely,



only up steps one of the lieutenant's men and fetches him a great

slash over the neck, so that the lieutenant came off with no more



hurt than a cut across the knuckles.

At the very first discharge of their pistols Blackbeard had been



shot through the body, but he was not for giving up for that--not

he. As said before, he was of the true roaring, raging breed of



pirates, and stood up to it until he received twenty more cutlass

cuts and five additional shots, and then fell dead while trying



to fire off an empty pistol. After that the lieutenant cut off

the pirate's head, and sailed away in triumph, with the bloody



trophy nailed to the bow of his battered sloop.

Those of Blackbeard's men who were not killed were carried off to



Virginia, and all of them tried and hanged but one or two, their

names, no doubt, still standing in a row in the provincial



records.

But did Blackbeard really bury treasures, as tradition says,



along the sandy shores he haunted?

Master Clement Downing, midshipman aboard the Salisbury, wrote a



book after his return from the cruise to Madagascar, whither the

Salisbury had been ordered, to put an end to the piracy with



which those waters were infested. He says:

"At Guzarat I met with a Portuguese named Anthony de Sylvestre;



he came with two other Portuguese and two Dutchmen to take on in

the Moor's service, as many Europeans do. This Anthony told me



he had been among the pirates, and that he belonged to one of the

sloops in Virginia when Blackbeard was taken. He informed me that



if it should be my lot ever to go to York River or Maryland, near




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