In the wake of the buccaneers

by A. Hyatt Verrill

We can well imagine that in the ill-smelling, unventilated hold a very creditable imitation of the infernal regions soon resulted, while Blackbeard might well have served as a model for the Evil One himself. At any rate, the officers and crew soon decided that even if they were on the straight road to perdition they had no desire to arrive ahead of time, and, choking and gasping, they broke through the hatches and climbed on deck. But not so with old Teach. Long after the last of his men had deserted the hold, he remained, seated on the stones, breathing the brimstone fumes, and throughout the rest of his days it was his greatest pride that he had been the last to give in.

Indeed, when one of his officers informed him that he had looked like a half-hanged man as he emerged, Teach seemed greatly pleased and declared that at some future time he was going to make a test to see who could dangle the longest from a noose without being wholly hanged.

Blackbeard believed in keeping himself before the [[51]]public and in not allowing even his friends to forget who he was or what his character, as illustrated by an incident in his career when he was entertaining his own sailing-master and a pilot in the cabin of his sloop, which was at anchor in one of the Virgin Island harbors.

After a time conversation lagged and Teach, blowing out the solitary candle, cocked his pistols, and, crossing his arms, fired point-blank toward his companions. The unfortunate sailing-master was shot through the knee and permanently crippled, but in the darkness of the cabin the other shot went wild and the pilot escaped with nothing worse than a fright. When, after this pleasantry, the candle was re-lit and the two indignant seamen demanded an explanation, Teach cursed them fluently and at length, and finished by explaining that they would forget who he was if he didn’t shoot one of them now and then.

Strangely enough, Blackbeard, despite his unattractive face and still more unattractive personality, appears to have been a good deal of a lady-killer, figuratively if not literally, for he managed to win the hearts and hands of fourteen maidens whom he married. History fails to record their subsequent fate or whether Teach devised some speedy form of divorce to suit himself. The fourteenth wife was [[52]]a “most charming young creature of sixteen,” if we are to believe those who wrote of her at first hand.

Blackbeard’s courtships would have made entertaining reading had they been recorded, and it would be interesting to know what there was about him that appealed so strongly to feminine tastes, but chroniclers evidently considered such matters too trivial to record.

Of course it would be expected that a man of Edward Teach’s character and attainments would die with his boots on and fighting to the last, and he was not one to disappoint the lover of lurid adventure. In the end he completely fulfilled everything expected of him. So great a menace had he become to shipping, especially to the merchant marine of the British colonies in America, that the powers that were demanded that his activities be brought to a speedy end. Accordingly, the Governor of Virginia, in 1718, posted divers and sundry notices to the effect that forty pounds sterling would be paid as a reward for the capture of any pirate captain, and that Edward Teach, otherwise known as “Blackbeard,” was worth one hundred pounds to the authorities, whether he be brought in dead or alive. In those days such a sum was a small fortune, enough to tempt any brave and hardy soul to have a try for it, but the first to camp on Blackbeard’s [[53]]trail was Lieutenant Maynard of H. M. S. Pearl. By some means never fully revealed, Maynard learned that the redoubtable pirate was enjoying a brief vacation in a secluded cove near Ocracoke Inlet (North Carolina). Gossip had it that the Governor of Carolina was on far too friendly terms with Teach, and that no small portion of that worthy gentleman’s wealth had found its way into the governor’s pockets, owing to the pirate’s appreciation of being left undisturbed in his chosen haven on the Carolina coast.

Whatever the truth may be, the young naval officer started forth in a sloop he had fitted out and manned, intent on Blackbeard’s capture or death. Although the pirate was apprised of the lieutenant’s approach, he scorned to move from his retreat, but spent the night before the expected visit in striving to outdrink a friendly merchant skipper who had dropped in for a call. Toward daylight, however, Teach’s men saw Maynard approaching, and the pirate, realizing that the officer really meant business, cut his cables, hoisted the Jolly Roger, and let his vessel drift ashore. Here, in the shoal water, he felt sure the sloop could not follow, and as, oddly enough, neither vessel carried cannon and it would be a hand-to-hand conflict, Blackbeard’s ruse was worthy of him. [[54]]

But the one hundred pounds still glittered before the lieutenant’s eyes, and, determined to do or die, he cast everything possible overboard, including the water-casks, set his sails, and headed directly for the pirate vessel. Thereupon Blackbeard, with his slow-matches smoking and sputtering in hair and beard, “hailed him in a most rude manner,” cursed him, defied him, and, to show his utter contempt, stood in plain view upon his ship’s rails and drank a goblet of liquor to Maynard’s damnation. Finding that, even with everything movable jettisoned, his sloop still drew too much water to grapple with the pirate, the lieutenant manned small boats and attempted to board Blackbeard’s craft. He was met with so hot a welcome of musketry and pistols that twenty-nine men were killed and wounded, and the boats retreated to the sloop.

Meanwhile the tide was rising, and Maynard’s sloop was constantly drifting closer to the pirate. Still confident of success, the lieutenant ordered all his men below, he alone remaining on deck with the helmsman. Presently, the sloop grated and bumped against the other vessel, and immediately the pirates began to pelt her with fire-grenades. Then, drawing cutlasses and pistols, they sprang over the bulwarks and swarmed upon the sloop’s decks in true melodramatic piratical style. Up [[55]]from the hold poured Maynard’s men, and hot and furious was the battle. Teach and the lieutenant were face to face. Both fired at the same instant, at point-blank range, but while the officer dodged, Teach was less fortunate, and Maynard’s bullet buried itself in the pirate’s face.