small
sloop. Teach ran his craft ashore.

Maynard was determined to get alongside the pirate, so with desperate
haste he began to throw his ballast overboard. More than that, he staved
in every water cask, until, feeling that he had enough freeboard, he
slipped his anchor, set his mainsail and jib, and bore down upon the
stranded sea robber.

As he came on, Teach, with fuses glowing under his hat, hailed him, and,
standing on the taffrail, defied him and drank to his bloody end in a
goblet of rum.... Teach, surrounded by his sullen and villainous gang,
shrieked out the chorus of a sea song as the sloop drew near and, when
she had drifted close enough, he pelted her deck with grenades.

At this moment, the two vessels touched, whereupon Teach and his crew,
with hideous yells, and a great gleam of cutlass blades, leapt upon the
sloop's deck. Through the smoke cloud the awful figure of the pirate
emerged, making for Maynard. At the same time, the men hidden in the
sloop scrambled up from below, and the riot of the fight began.

As Teach and Maynard met, they both fired at each other, point blank.
The lieutenant dodged, but the robber was hit in the face, and the blood
was soon dripping from his beard, the ends of which were, as usual,
tucked up over his ears.

There was no time to fumble with pistols now. So they fought with
cutlasses. Teach, spitting the blood from his mouth, swore that he would
hack Maynard's soul from his body, but his opponent was too fine an
adept with the sword to be easily disposed of. It was a fearful duel, a
trial of the robber's immense strength against the officer's deftness.

They chased each other about the deck, stumbling across dead bodies,
knocking down snarling men, who, clutched together, were fighting with
knives. Ever through the mirk could be seen the pirate's grinning teeth
and his evil eyes lighted by the burning and smoking fuses on either
side of them, ever above the groans of the wounded and the hoarse shouts
of ruffians and jack tars, rose Teach's murderous war cry.

At last, Maynard, defending himself from a terrific blow, had his sword
blade broken off at the hilt. Now was the pirate's chance. He aimed a
slash at Maynard. The lieutenant put up the remnant of his sword and
Teach's blow hacked off his fingers. Had the fight been left to the duel
between the two, Maynard had not a second to live. But, just as the
pirate's blow fell, one of the navy men brought his cutlass