h Main and refitted his ships in the Bay of Honduras."

"The madman of the sea," said the stolid mate. "A bad day for us when he
sailed to the north'ard. He kills for the pleasure of it. Now Stede
Bonnet loots such stuff as takes his fancy and----"

"He loves to fight a king's ship for the sport of it," broke in the
skipper, "but this murderer---- An unlucky voyage for the old _Plymouth
Adventure_ and all hands, Mate."

One of the women who had been suffered to remain on deck was close
enough to overhear the direful news. Her hands to heaven, she wailed:

"Blackbeard! Oh, my soul, we are as good as dead, or worse. Fight and
sink him, dear captain. What shall I do? What shall I do? If I had only
minded the dream I had the night before we sailed----"

Jack Cockrell sat down beside his uncle, a limp and sorry youth for one
who had offered to slay a six-foot pirate before breakfast to please a
pretty maid. With a sickly grin he murmured:

"This cockerel crowed too loud, Uncle Peter. Methinks I share your
distaste for piracy."

CHAPTER III

HELD AS HOSTAGES TO BLACKBEARD

TO discover the pestilent Blackbeard in Carolina waters was like a
thunderbolt from a clear sky. Captain Wellsby had felt confident that he
could beat off the ordinary pirate craft which was apt to be smaller
than his own stout ship. And most of these unsavory gentry were mere
salt-water burglars who had little taste for hard fighting. The master
of the _Plymouth Adventure_, so pious and sedate, was a brave man to
whom the thought of surrender was intolerable. From what he knew of
Blackbeard, it was useless to try to parley for the lives of his
passengers. Better it was to answer with double-shotted guns than to beg
for mercy.

The British tars, stripped to the waist, turned anxious eyes to the
skipper upon the quarter-deck while they quaffed pannikins of rum and
water and cracked many a rough jest. They fancied death no more than
other men, but seafaring was a perilous trade and they were toughened to
its hazards. They were facing hopeless odds but let the master shout the
command and they would send the souls of some of these pirates sizzling
down to hell before the _Plymouth Adventure_ sank, a splintered hulk, in
the smoke of her own gunpowder.

Captain Wellsby delayed his decision a moment longer. Something most
unusual had attracted his attention. A ball of smoke puffed from a port
of Blackbeard's ship, but the round shot splashed