that pirate," said some of the naval men, "and he
will wait and fight us."

"He will wait and fight us," said some of the others, "because he
cannot get away; in this wind he is at our mercy."

Captain Vince stood and gazed over the water, sometimes with his glass
and sometimes without it. Here now was the end of his fuming, his
raging, his long and untiring search. All the anxious weariness of long
voyaging, all the impatience of watching, all the irritation of waiting
had gone. The notorious vessel in which the father of Kate Bonnet had
made himself a terror and a scourge was now almost within his reach. The
beneficent vessel by which the father of Kate Bonnet should give to him
his life's desire was so near to him that he could have sent a musket
ball into her had he chosen to fire. It was so near to him that he could
now, with his glass, read the word "Revenge" on her bow. His brows were
knit, his jaws were set tight, his muscles hardened themselves with
energy.

Again the orders were passed, that when the men of the corvette boarded
the pirate they were to cut down the rascals without mercy, and not one
of them was to draw sword or pistol against the pirate captain. He would
be attended to by their commander.

Vince knew the story of Stede Bonnet; he knew that early in life he had
been in the army, and that it was likely that he understood the handling
of a sword. But he knew also that he himself was one of the best
swordsmen in the royal navy. He yearned to cross blades with the man
whose blood should not be shed, whose life should be preserved
throughout the combat as if he were a friend and not a foe, who should
surrender to him his sword and give to him his daughter.

"They're a brave lot, those bloody rascals," said one of the men of the
Badger.

"They've a fool of a captain," said another; "he knows not the
difference between a British man-of-war and a Spanish galleon, but we
shall teach him that."

Slowly they came together, the Revenge and the Badger, the bow of one
pointed east and the bow of the other to the west; from neither vessel
there came a word; the low waves could be heard flapping against their
sides. Suddenly there rang out from the man-of-war the order to make
fast. The grapnels flew over the bulwarks of the pirate, and in a moment
the two vessels were as one. Then, with a great shout, the men of the
Badger leaped and hurled themselves upon the deck of the Revenge, and
upon that deck