lueskin, the pirate.

II

It was in the fall and the early winter of the year 1750, and again in
the summer of the year following, that the famous pirate, Blueskin,
became especially identified with Lewes as a part of its traditional
history.

For some time--for three or four years--rumors and reports of
Blueskin's doings in the West Indies and off the Carolinas had been
brought in now and then by sea captains. There was no more cruel,
bloody, desperate, devilish pirate than he in all those
pirate-infested waters. All kinds of wild and bloody stories were
current concerning him, but it never occurred to the good folk of
Lewes that such stories were some time to be a part of their own
history.

But one day a schooner came drifting into Lewes harbor--shattered,
wounded, her forecastle splintered, her foremast shot half away, and
three great tattered holes in her mainsail. The mate with one of the
crew came ashore in the boat for help and a doctor. He reported that
the captain and the cook were dead and there were three wounded men
aboard. The story he told to the gathering crowd brought a very
peculiar thrill to those who heard it. They had fallen in with
Blueskin, he said, off Fenwick's Island (some twenty or thirty miles
below the capes), and the pirates had come aboard of them; but,
finding that the cargo of the schooner consisted only of cypress
shingles and lumber, had soon quitted their prize. Perhaps Blueskin
was disappointed at not finding a more valuable capture; perhaps the
spirit of deviltry was hotter in him that morning than usual; anyhow,
as the pirate craft bore away she fired three broadsides at short
range into the helpless coaster. The captain had been killed at the
first fire, the cook had died on the way up, three of the crew were
wounded, and the vessel was leaking fast, betwixt wind and water.

Such was the mate's story. It spread like wildfire, and in half an
hour all the town was in a ferment. Fenwick's Island was very near
home; Blueskin might come sailing into the harbor at any minute and
then--! In an hour Sheriff Jones had called together most of the
able-bodied men of the town, muskets and rifles were taken down from
the chimney places, and every preparation was made to defend the place
against the pirates, should they come into the harbor and attempt to
land.

But Blueskin did not come that day, nor did he come the next or the
next. But on the afternoon of the third the news went s