down upon
the back of the pirate's neck, half severing it. Teach, too enraged to
realize it was his death blow, turned on the man and cut him to the
deck.

The current of the fight changed. From all sides the jack tars, who
dared not close with the pirate chief, fired pistols at him. The decks
were slippery with blood. Still fighting, Teach kicked off his shoes,
to get a better hold of the planks. His back was to the bulwarks. Six
men were attacking him at once.

Panting horribly, and roaring curses still, Teach, with his dripping
cutlass, kept them all at bay. He had received twenty-five wounds, five
of which were from bullets. His whole body was red. The half-severed
head could not be held straight, but some incredible will power enabled
him to twist his chin upwards, so that, to the last, his eyes glared
with the fierce joy of battle, and the lips, already stiffening, smiled
defiantly.

The six men drew back, aghast that a creature so wounded could still
live and move, but Teach drew a pistol and was cocking it, when his
eyelids closed slowly, as though he were going to sleep, and he fell
back on the railing, dead.

So, in fitting manner, perished the last of the great pirates of the
Spanish Main.

CHAPTER XIII

THE HUNGRY SHARK

"Hyar, sah! Please don' you go t'rowin' nuffin to de sharks, not 'roun'
dese waters, anyhow."

"Why?" asked Stuart in return, smiling at the grave face of the negro
steward on board the steamer taking him from Porto Rico to Jamaica. His
stay at Porto Rico had been brief, for he found a telegram awaiting him
from Fergus, bidding him hurry at once to Kingston.

"No, sah," repeated the negro, "dar witch-sharks in dese waters,
debbil-sharks, too. Folks do say dem ol' buccaneers, when dey died, was
so bad dat eben de Bad Place couldn't take 'em. Now, dey's sharks,
a-swimmin' to an' fro, an' lookin' for gol', like dem yar pirates used
ter do."

"Oh, come, Sam, you don't believe that!" protested the boy. "What could
a shark do with gold, if he had it?"

"Sho's you livin', Sah," came the response, "I done see two gol' rings
an' a purse taken out'n the inside of a shark. An' you know how, right
in dese hyar waters, a shark swallowed some papers, an' it was the
findin' o' dose papers what stopped a lot o' trouble between Great
Britain an' the United States, yes, Sah!"

The gift of silver crossing a palm has other powers besides that of
inspiring a fortune-teller. It can inspi