ny years he was the very hero of heroes of piratical
fame; there was hardly a creek or stream or point of land along our
coast, hardly a convenient bit of good sandy beach, or hump of rock,
or water-washed cave, where fabulous treasures were not said to have
been hidden by this worthy marooner. Now we are assured that he never
was a pirate, and never did bury any treasure, excepting a certain
chest, which he was compelled to hide upon Gardiner's Island--and
perhaps even it was mythical.

So poor Kidd must be relegated to the dull ranks of simply respectable
people, or semirespectable people at best.

But with "Blackbeard" it is different, for in him we have a real,
ranting, raging, roaring pirate _per se_--one who really did bury
treasure, who made more than one captain walk the plank, and who
committed more private murders than he could number on the fingers of
both hands; one who fills, and will continue to fill, the place to
which he has been assigned for generations, and who may be depended
upon to hold his place in the confidence of others for generations to
come.

Captain Teach was a Bristol man born, and learned his trade on board
of sundry privateers in the East Indies during the old French
war--that of 1702--and a better apprenticeship could no man serve. At
last, somewhere about the latter part of the year 1716, a privateering
captain, one Benjamin Hornigold, raised him from the ranks and put him
in command of a sloop--a lately captured prize--and Blackbeard's
fortune was made. It was a very slight step, and but the change of a
few letters, to convert "privateer" into "pirate," and it was a very
short time before Teach made that change. Not only did he make it
himself, but he persuaded his old captain to join with him.

And now fairly began that series of bold and lawless depredations
which have made his name so justly famous, and which placed him among
the very greatest of marooning freebooters.

"Our hero," says the old historian who sings of the arms and bravery
of this great man--"our hero assumed the cognomen of Blackbeard from
that large quantity of hair which, like a frightful meteor, covered
his whole face, and frightened America more than any comet that
appeared there in a long time. He was accustomed to twist it with
ribbons into small tails, after the manner of our Ramillies wig, and
turn them about his ears. In time of action he wore a sling over his
shoulders, with three brace of pistols, ha