The fellow still held his pipe in his hand. He looked at another one of the men. "Do you know the passes in over the shoals, Jem?" said he.
The man to whom he spoke was a young fellow with long, shaggy, sunburnt hair hanging over his eyes in an unkempt mass. He shook his head, grunting, "Na—I don't know naught about t' shoals."
"'Tis Lieutenant Maynard of His Majesty's navy in command of them vessels out there," said the boatswain. "He'll give any man five pound to pilot him in." The men on the wharf looked at one another, but still no one spoke, and the boatswain stood looking at them. He saw that they did not choose to answer him. "Why," he said, "I believe you've not got right wits—that's what I believe is the matter with you. Pull me up to the landing, men, and I'll go ashore and see if I can find anybody that's willing to make five pound for such a little bit of piloting as that."
After the boatswain had gone ashore the loungers still stood on the wharf, looking down into the boat, and began talking to one another for the men below to hear them. "They're coming in," said one, "to blow poor Blackbeard out of the water." "Aye," said another, "he's so peaceable, too, he is; he'll just lay still and let 'em blow and blow, he will." "There's a young fellow there," said another of the men; "he don't look fit to die yet, he don't. Why, I wouldn't be in his place for a thousand pound." "I do suppose Blackbeard's so afraid he don't know how to see," said the first speaker.
At last one of the men in the boat spoke up. "Maybe he don't know how to see," said he, "but maybe we'll blow some daylight into him afore we get through with him."
Some more of the settlers had come out from the shore to the end of the wharf, and there was now quite a crowd gathering there, all looking at the men in the boat. "What do them Virginny 'baccy-eaters do down here in Caroliny, anyway?" said one of the newcomers. "They've got no call to be down here in North Caroliny waters."
"Maybe you can keep us away from coming, and maybe you can't," said a voice from the boat.
"Why," answered the man on the wharf, "we could keep you away easy enough, but you ben't worth the trouble, and that's the truth."
There was a heavy iron bolt lying near the edge of the landing. One of the men upon the wharf slyly thrust it out with the end of his foot. It hung for a moment and then fell into the boat below with a crash. "What d'ye mean by that?" roared the man in charge of the boat. "What d'ye mean, ye villains? D'ye mean to stave a hole in us?"
"Why," said the man who had pushed it, "you saw 'twasn't done a purpose, didn't you?"