"Stranded hard and fast! And she is deucedly like Blackbeard's brig."
Scampering to the deck, Joe Hawkridge mustered his gun's crew as Jack Cockrell came running up to say:
"Trapped on the very islet where he cast you and the other pirates! His chickens have come home to roost."
"Call me no pirate or I'll stretch ye with a handspike," grinned Joe. "'Tis a plaguey poor word in this company. Aye, Cap'n Ed'ard Teach has a taste of his own medicine and he will get a worse dose this day than ever he served me."
CHAPTER XVII
THE GREAT FIGHT OF CAPTAIN TEACH
YES, there was Blackbeard's ship hard in the sand which had gripped her keel while she was steering to enter the Cherokee Inlet. There was no pearly vapor of swamp mist out here to shroud her from attack. The air was clear and bright, with a robust breeze which stirred a flashing surf on the shoals. Under lower sails, the two sloops watchfully crept nearer until their crews could examine the stranded brig and read the story of her plight. She stood on a slant with the decks sloped toward the enemy. This made it impossible to use her guns with any great effect.
Captain Wellsby tacked ship and kept the King George well away from the cay, as Joe Hawkridge advised. With an ebbing tide, it was unsafe to venture into shallower water in order to pound Blackbeard's vessel with broadsides. Lieutenant Maynard came aboard in a small boat and was quite the dandy with his brocaded coat and ruffles and velvet small-clothes. One might have thought he had engaged to dance the minuet. Colonel Stuart met him in a spick-and-span uniform of His Majesty's Foot, cross-belts pipe-clayed white as snow, boots polished until they shone. Such gentlemen were punctilious in war two hundred years ago.