The weather had been threatening for some time, and now, on a late afternoon, the great ocean heaved murmurously beneath the bows. In the rigging the wind fretted and complained, shrilly and more shrilly as though the white-green tumult of the waters was disturbing it; in the cabin below the dark horror of delirium tremens was falling upon the bearded master. On the decks, the mate—doubtless the effective Mr. Richards—stripped his ship for the approaching combat and drove his men aloft into the swaying yards. Now and then Blackbeard, still the sailor, reeled on his cabin threshold and blurted insane orders to the gale. Whereat Mr. Richards, well accustomed to the storms of wind and waves and delirious masters, slammed the door in his face and laughingly went about his work.
Palely the day expired in the west, and as though they had only been waiting for the night, wind and water strengthened to the struggle and now persuaded a third element, the rain, to join them in the conspiracy of destruction. These three witches began to make the cauldron boil.
Mr. Richards still laughed; his sails were in and he was with the helmsman, sweating to keep the vessel from a fatal lurch.
“What’s that sound?” gasped the steersman to his officer, leaning full weight to his work. Forward they could see nothing but the black void and a white wash of sea where their decks and bowsprit should ordinarily be, nor could look in that direction long for the whips of rain with which the screaming winds lashed them.
“The wind,” hollered Richards, bending close to be heard.
The steersman shook his head. “No—that!” he shouted.
The gale paused in one of those lulls by which it seems to recover for a effort of fresh fury. And in the second of quietness there rose and fell a long, horrible scream of inhuman defiance. Richards grinned and pointed with his finger below. Blackbeard was wrestling with the principalities and powers of darkness.
“Who’s that?” bellowed the steersman, his momentary reassurance flown. His face was turned with a gaze of inexpressible fear at the gleaming, plunging masts. “There—there—”
Richards peered in the rain-whipped night; peered and shrank back, his mouth open wide and his eyes protruding. He rallied, pulled out a heavy wooden pin from the ship’s side and started forward. Within ten paces of the main-mast he stopped, and gathering his strength, hurled the pin with all his force crashingly against the mast. The pin fell into an invading sea and was whirled overboard. But the Thing stood, dark and sinister.
Richards felt the ship getting beyond control of the cowering helmsman. He rushed back in time to save them from ruin; the man had dropped to the deck, a bundle of abject fright. While the mate was still calling for help, the boatswain crawled up on hands and knees and turned an ashen face to his superior.