and take him. On one occasion Vane met the famous Blackbeard,
whom he saluted with his great guns loaded with shot. This compliment of
one pirate chief to another was returned in like kind, and then "mutual
civilities" followed for several days between the two pirate captains and
their crews, these civilities taking the form of a glorious debauch in a
quiet creek on the coast.

Vane soon had a change of fortune, when, meeting with a French man-of-war,
he decided to decline an engagement and to seek safety in flight, greatly
to the anger of his crew. For this he was obliged to stand the test of the
vote of the whole crew, who passed a resolution against his honour and
dignity, and branded him a coward, deprived him of his command, and packed
him off with a few of his adherents in a small sloop. Vane, not
discouraged by this reverse of fortune, rose again from the bottom rung of
the ladder to success, and quickly increased in strength of ships and
crew, until one day, being overcome by a sudden tornado, he lost
everything but his life, being washed up on a small uninhabited island off
the Honduras coast. Here he managed to support life by begging food from
the fishermen who occasionally came there in their canoes.

At last a ship put in for water, commanded by one Captain Holford, who
happened to be an old friend of Vane's. Vane naturally was pleased at this
piece of good fortune, and asked his dear old friend to take him off the
island in his ship, to which Holford replied: "Charles, I shan't trust you
aboard my ship, unless I carry you as a prisoner, for I shall have you
caballing with my men, knock me on the head, and run away with my ship
a-pirating." No promises of good behaviour from Vane would prevail on his
friend to rescue him; in fact, Captain Holford's parting remark was that
he would be returning in a month, and that if he then found Vane still on
the island he would carry him to Jamaica to be hanged.

Soon after Holford's departure another ship put in for water, none of the
crew of which knew Vane by sight, and he was too crafty to let them find
out the notorious pirate he was. They consented to take off the
shipwrecked mariner, when, just as all seemed to be going well, back came
the ship of friend Holford. Holford, who seems to have been a sociable
kind of man, was well acquainted with the captain who was befriending
Vane, and Holford was invited to dine on board his ship. As the guest was
passing along th