Bonnet might have come down as a somewhat romantic person, but the nerve he had always shown, even in his trial, broke at the last; and when on December 18 he was hanged in the same place as his followers had been, he was almost senseless from fear. Thus in a miserable huddle he left a stage on which he had not been too modest, on which he had even swaggered.
This is all the story of one summer. The blockade of Charles Town by Blackbeard had happened in May of 1718, and December of the same year saw the end of Stede Bonnet. And to Bonnet, as to his men, there came a spark of joy before he went to the rope—and that was the news that his old superior, Blackbeard, had died upon the cutlass on November 22.
VII
Abdicating the high estate of admiral and breaking up his fleet, leaving a part of it, as we have seen, to roll as wreckage on the tides of Topsail Inlet, Blackbeard came back to Ocracoke and a lazy summer.
Perhaps it was during these thoughtful, meditative days that he persuaded a young lady to become his fourteenth wife for there is record of a merry marriage at which Governor Eden himself condescended to appear as a well-wishing guest and give the occasion the suitable air to promote the new Mrs. Blackbeard’s social fortunes. At the feast a good deal of somebody else’s rum, somebody else’s victuals and somebody else’s money were laid under contribution. Governor Eden, however, had a peculiarly happy detachment to the minor questions of somebody else’s property. That phase of his disposition doubly endeared him to his pirate friend.
But the gold pieces that he sent spinning dwindled anon; little Toby Knight began to bore him and even the Governor commenced to get on his nerves. Respectable shore life was entirely too much for him, so Blackbeard again yearned for the reeling decks and the roar of his bully boys. With a laudable regard for the proprieties, he gave out that he was putting to sea again on a “commercial venture,” and even registered his ship at the local customs house.
“Salvage,” he murmured, looking intently into little Toby’s honest face; pressing the secretary’s round, fat hand in farewell.
“Salvage,” grinned Toby, glad to get even the friendly grip of the sea monster released, and instinctively rubbing his hand slyly on the tails of his flaring coat.
Still delicate, Blackbeard waited until the land faded into the sea line behind him ere, with the feeling that he had had a pleasant vacation and was glad to get back to work again, he threw out his sinister ensign,—the flag of skull and bones. Blackbeard was himself again.
And now there happened that which many of the crew had often fearfully predicted,—the Devil came aboard Blackbeard’s ship.