“I’ll advise your family, Marks, if anything happens,” he said kindly; “but I’m sure it won’t.”
He felt pretty sure it would.
All stood in for Charles Town. Mr. Wragg once or twice thought he saw Mark’s hand waving at him from Blackbeard’s ship, where he and the merchant captain were detained. Or was it poor Mark’s nightcap tossed in a dreadful struggle with the villains? Who could tell?
Captors and captives lay at the bar; and Blackbeard sent the longboat off to town, carrying Mr. Marks under guard of Richards and half a dozen nasty rascals. The astonishment of the town was unwordable when it saw the respectable Marks in company so dreadful.
But when they heard what Mr. Marks had to tell them their astonishment turned to fighting wrath. For Blackbeard ordered four hundred pounds’ worth of medical supplies delivered to Richards or, first, Mr. Marks would be shot on the spot; second, Mr. Wragg’s head and those of all the other passengers would arrive by the next boat; third, the pride of the province, Charles Town itself, would be blown from its foundations.
Governor Johnson was a strong man, and his council were strong men; but here was a puzzle for them. Sixteen years before this they had beaten off the French invaders with a courage that is notable in the history of municipalities; but now the gun was right straight at them, and it looked like hands up.
Things were stirring about in Blackbeard’s fleet as well as in the town. Especially when two days went by and no word came over to the bar from Richards or Marks. On the evening of that day, Blackbeard, steeped in rum, lined his hostages along the deck and raved and thrust his awful beard into their faces and generally behaved in a most ungenteel manner.
“Shake your heads, my pretty landlubbers,” he bellowed; “shake ’em while they’re on your necks, for if Richards don’t come back in the mornin’ your heads will go to town at noon.”
The wretched part of it was that the ruffian meant what he said.
A messenger came from Richards, however, in the morning, and so reprieved Mr. Wragg and his fellows for a few hours more. The messenger stated that in going from the bar to town the boat in which Marks was being taken capsized and there had been no end of trouble and delay in getting ashore. Further that the provincial council had been called together and were debating Blackbeard’s proposition.