It was Captain Stede Bonnet himself who steered the pinnace and cursed his sweating sailors in a deep voice which went echoing across the bay. He made a brave figure in his scarlet coat, with the brass guard of his naked cutlass winking in the sun. His boat's crew had been mustered from many climes and races, several strapping Englishmen, a wiry, spluttering little Frenchman, a swarthy Portuguese with gold rings in his ears, a brace of stolid Norwegians, and two or three coal black negroes from Barbadoes.
They were well armed, every weapon burnished clean of rust and ready for instant use. Some wore tarnished, sea-stained finery looted from hapless prizes, a brocaded waistcoat, a pair of tasseled jack-boots, a plumed hat, a ruffled cape. The heads of several were bound around with knotted kerchiefs on which dark stains showed,—marks of a brawl aboard the brig or a fight with another ship.
Soon a second boat moved away from the Royal James and many people drifted toward the wharf to see the pirates come ashore, but they left plenty of room when the captain scrambled up the weedy ladder and told his men to follow him. Charles Town felt little dread of Stede Bonnet himself. He knew how to conduct himself as a gentleman and the story was well known,—how he had been a major in the British army and a man of wealth and refinement. He had left his home in Barbadoes to follow the trade of piracy because he couldn't get along with his wife, so the rumor ran. At any rate, he seemed oddly out of place among the dirty rogues who sailed under the black flag.
He looked more the soldier than the sailor as he strode along the wharf, his lean, dark visage both grim and melancholy, his chin clean shaven, his mustachios carefully cropped. There were respectful greetings from the crowd of idlers and a gray-haired seaman all warped with rheumatism spoke up louder than the rest.
"Good morrow to ye, Cap'n Bonnet! I be old Sam Griscom that sailed bos'n with you on a marchant voyage out of Liverpool. An' now you are a fine gentleman of fortune, with moidores and pieces of eight to fling at the gals, an' here I be, a sheer hulk on the beach."
Captain Stede Bonnet halted, stared from beneath heavy brows, and a smile made his seamed, sun-dried face almost gentle as he replied:
"It cheers me to run athwart a true old shipmate. A slant of ill fortune, eh, Sam Griscom? You are too old and crippled to sail in the Royal James. Here, and a blessing with the gift."
The pirate skipper rammed a hand in his pocket and flung a shower of gold coins at the derelict seaman while the crowd cheered the generous deed. It was easy to guess why Stede Bonnet was something of a hero in Charles Town. He passed on and turned into the street. Most of his ruffians were at his heels but one of the younger of them delayed to pay his compliments to a pretty girl whose manner was sweet and shy and gentle. She had remained aloof from the crowd, having some errand of her own at the wharf, and evidently hoped to be unobserved. Jack Cockrell had failed to notice her, absorbed as he was in gazing his fill of Captain Stede Bonnet.
The girl resented the young pirate's gallantry and would have fled, but he nimbly blocked her path. Just then Jack Cockrell happened to glance that way and his anger flamed hot. He was about to run after Captain Bonnet and beg him to interfere but the maid's distress was too urgent. Her blackguardly admirer was trying to slip his arm around her trim waist while he laughingly demanded a kiss from those fair lips. She evaded him and screamed for help.
There were lusty townsmen among those who beheld the scene but they sheepishly stood in their tracks and were afraid to punish the insolent pirate with his dirk and pistols. He was much taller and heavier than Jack Cockrell, the lad of seventeen, who came of gentlefolk and was unused to brawls with weapons. But the youngster hesitated no more than an instant, although his own pistol lacked a flint and was carried for show.