Pirate tales from the law

by Arthur M. Harris

They reached Pamlico Sound, of which Ocracoke Inlet is a part, toward the evening of November 21, and with jumping pulses spotted the masts of the black beast as he lay in wait for prey. Blackbeard was surprised just as Bonnet had been, and like Bonnet spent the night in getting ready for battle.

The Virginians had to lie outside the inlet all night and wait for the morning to light them through the risky channels. When next day they sailed in, Blackbeard, knowing the soundings, was able to make the running-fight pirate tactics prescribed for such emergencies, and blasted Brand and Maynard with his broadsides; and though steeped to the eyebrows in rum, he was at all times the adept and finished sailor.

But the enemy were getting at him, too, and his decks were cluttered with the slain. He was undermanned, having only some twenty men at the time, so that his losses from the attackers’ fire left him but a sparse crew to work his ship and man eight guns, as well as keep going an effective musketry volleying. There was left but one resource, and that was hand-to-hand conflict.

He got within grappling distance of Maynard’s ship, and with his usual ferocity of appearance and manner threw himself and his surviving men into the Virginian’s rigging, and plunged, demoniacally fighting, to the decks. For a second the pirates shook their enemy with the shock of the impact, but not long; with that roaring vigor which gave the English-speaking sailors their dominion of the oceans of the world, Maynard’s men rallied and an indescribable butchering ensued.

Blackbeard made for the commander, and Maynard met him with equal courage and the added strength which the moral side of the matter always lends a warrior’s arm. The arch-pirate’s body was open at more than twenty places; but on those heaving, blood-wet decks he fought the lieutenant with the verve of an athlete fresh for the field. A sudden chance and he thrust a cocked pistol straight into his opponent’s chest, but before the finger could pull the trigger back, Maynard laid the cutlass squarely across the pirate’s throat. He sank to the deck like a slaughtered bull.

He fought the lieutenant with the verve of an athlete fresh for the field.

It was all over. Those pirates who could, leaped over the bulwarks and swam to the shore, leaving a red trail in the water behind them.

Twilight came down on the sea. Beneath the shallow waters the bodies of the slain quivered with the motion of the waves as if they were still alive and still struggling, and among them was the headless corpse of Blackbeard.

For that terrible head was hung at the bowsprit of Maynard’s ship. All the way back to Virginia the gruesome figurehead swung and dipped and ducked with the movements of the vessel; the ocean pounded and played with it and twisted that strange beard into more fantastic shapes than Blackbeard had ever dreamed of, weaving into it the weeds and slime-flora of the sea, and for a last touch washed from their sockets the baleful eyes which glared in the fixed glassiness of death.