He was about to give the order when Joe Hawkridge, gunner's mate, called to Jack Cockrell standing his watch at the helm:
"Remember the snow I told ye of? Yonder is the same rig and tonnage, alike it as peas in a pod."
Jack spoke to the shipmaster who summoned Joe to the quarter-deck. The boy was confident that this was the New England coasting vessel in which Ned Rackham and his pirates had appeared off Cherokee Inlet and had carried the marooned seamen from the sandy cay.
"A brown patch in the big main-topsail, and the bowsprit steeved more'n ordinary," said Joe. "Tit for tat, Cap'n Wellsby. Your men can have the fun of jamming them in the fo'castle. And you won't find me or Jack helpin' these picaroons to break out."
"No fear of that," sternly spoke the shipmaster. "They shall make their exit with a taut rope and a long drop when I deliver them in Virginia."
It was to be gathered that the bold Ned Rackham had failed in his desperate enterprise of capturing a larger ship and that he was probably cruising up the coast in hopes of rejoining Blackbeard. The snow had too few guns to cope with the King George brigantine which could throw a battering broadside. As soon as identification was certain, Captain Wellsby hauled to windward to hold the weather gauge and Colonel Stuart called the men to quarters. The Plymouth Adventure hands were disappointed that they would be unable to pay their own grudge. They had no doubt that Ned Rackham would strike his colors without a battle.
The King George ran close enough for Captain Wellsby to shout through the trumpet:
"The snow ahoy! Send your men aboard or I'll sink you. No tricks, Rackham. Lively, now."
They saw the men running to cut the boat lashings and struggle to launch the boats from the deck. Ned Rackham, handsome and debonair, stared coolly at the brigantine but gave no sign that he had heard the ultimatum. With a shrug he walked across the poop, glanced up at the British ensign which flew from his main truck, and made no motion to pull it down.
"Blow your matches, boys," roared Colonel Stuart from his station in the waist of the King George. "Five minutes' grace, no more."