ting arm-in-arm with Captain
Stede Bonnet. It was mournful, indeed, that Captain Wellsby should have
to lose his ship but 'tis an ill wind that blows nobody good and the
voyage to England, which Jack had loathed from the bottom of his heart,
was indefinitely postponed. Such an experience as this was apt to
discourage Uncle Peter Forbes from trying it again.

There were sundry chicken-hearted passengers anxious to curry favor with
Blackbeard, who gabbled when they should have held their tongues, and in
this manner he learned that he had bagged the honorable Secretary of the
Provincial Council. The bewhiskered pirate slapped his thighs and roared
with glee.

"Damme, but he looks it! Alack that my sorry need of medicines compels
me to give quarter! Would I might swing this fat Secretary from a
topsail yard! And a rogue of a lawyer to boot! He tempts me----"

"I demand the courtesy due a hostage," exclaimed Mr. Peter Forbes.

"Ho, ho, you shall be my lackey,--the chief messenger," laughed
Blackbeard, showing his yellow teeth. "Hat in hand, begging medicines
for me."

The honorable Secretary was near apoplexy. He could only sputter and
cough. He was to be sent as an errand boy to the people of Charles Town,
at the brutal behest of this unspeakable knave, but refusal meant death
and there were his fellow captives to consider. He thought of his nephew
and was about to plead that Jack be sent along with him when Blackbeard
demanded:

"What of the boy? He takes my eye. No pursy swine of a lawyer could sire
a lad of his brawn and inches."

"I am Master Cockrell," Jack answered for himself, "and I would have you
more courteous to my worthy uncle."

It was a speech so bold that the scourge of the Spanish Main tugged at
his whiskers with an air of comical perplexity. The headstrong Jack was
keen enough to note that he had made an impression and he rashly added:

"'Tis not long since I knocked a pirate on the head for incivility."

Mr. Peter Forbes gazed aghast, with slackened jaw, expecting to see his
mad nephew cut down by the sweep of a broadsword, but Blackbeard merely
grinned and slapped the lad half-way across the deck with a buffet of
his open hand. Dizzily Jack picked himself up and was furiously scolded
by his uncle. Their lives hung by a hair and this was no time to play
the fool. For once, however, Jack was the wiser of the two. In an
amiable humor Blackbeard exclaimed:

"And so this strapping young jackanapes