Maynard now sent his men down into the hold of the ship. They were out of sight of the pirates, but they had their pistols and swords ready. The sloops were soon close together, and Blackbeard's men threw boxes full of powder and shot, and pieces of lead and iron, on the deck of Maynard's sloop. These were so fixed as to go off like bombshells. But, as nearly all of Maynard's men were down below the deck, these boxes did little harm.
Blackbeard, thinking that most of Maynard's men had been killed, jumped on board the sloop with fourteen men. Maynard now called his men from below, and there was a desperate fight. Blackbeard was shot five times, and was wounded with swords; but the old monster fought until he fell down dead while cocking his pistol. The rest of the pirates on the deck of Maynard's ship were taken prisoners.
Maynard's other sloop was fighting with the men left on board Blackbeard's vessels. These surrendered, but they had trouble to keep the big negro from setting fire to the gunpowder and blowing them all up.
Maynard took away from the Governor of North Carolina many hogsheads of sugar that Blackbeard had stolen. Then he hung the great ugly head of the pirate at the bow of his ship, and sailed back to Virginia in triumph.
AN OLD PHILADELPHIA SCHOOL.
There was a schoolmaster in Philadelphia before the Revolution who did not like to beat his pupils as other masters of that time did. When a boy behaved badly, he would take his switch and stick it into the back of the boy's coat collar so that the switch should rise above his head in the air. He would then stand the boy up on a bench in sight of the school, in order to punish him by making him ashamed.
This schoolmaster's name was Dove. If any boy was not at school in time, the master would send a committee of five or six of the scholars to fetch him. One of this committee carried a lighted lantern, while another had a bell in his hand. The tardy scholar had to march down the street in broad daylight with a lantern to show him the way, and a boy ringing the school bell to let him know that it was time for him to be there.
The Tardy Schoolmaster.