The explanation was simple enough. Joe Hawkridge read it at a glance. Blackbeard was not the drunken chuckle-head that Stede Bonnet had assumed him to be. He, too, had taken advantage of the fog to attempt to carry the enemy by stealth. The wit of the one had been matched by the other. And the two flotillas had gone wide enough in passing to escape mutual discovery. In a way it was a pirates' comedy but there were two spectators who foresaw a personal tragedy. They fled for the cabin and scuttled through a small door in a bulkhead which admitted them to the dark hold of the ship.
It was their purpose to hide in the remotest nook that could be found. Falling over odds and ends of cargo they burrowed like rats and stowed themselves behind a tier of mahogany logs which had been taken out of some prize or other. They were in the bottom of the ship, upon the rough floor covering the stone ballast. Then these frightened stowaways found respite to confer in tremulous whispers.
"This is the very dreadfulest fix of all, Joe. I had a fair look at Blackbeard himself, in the stern of the boat,—red ribbons in his whiskers, and his sash stuck full of pistols."
"That old rip isn't an easy man to mistake, Jack. Now the fat is in the fire," replied the Hawkridge lad who, for once, appeared discouraged. "Cap'n Bonnet is a vast sight happier than us. He gets the Revenge without strikin' a blow."
"But Blackbeard gets us," wailed Master Cockrell. "And I helped to chase him through the swamp after we rammed the pirogue into his wherry and capsized the treasure chest. Do you suppose he knew me just now?"
"Those little red eyes of his are passing keen. But didn't ye tell me of smearing your face with mud that day to fend off the mosquitoes? It may ha' disguised you."
"A little comfort in that, Joe, but to be found in Stede Bonnet's brig bodes ill enough. Of a truth we be born to trouble as the sparks fly upward ever since we joined the pirates. What is your advice?"
"To stay hid below and pray God for another shift o' fortune," piously answered Joe. "There is no fear of Blackbeard's rummagin' the hold at present. He must decide if he'll fight the Revenge or give her the slip. And whilst him and his men are busied on deck, I can make bold to search for stores fit to eat. Cap'n Bonnet allus had a well-found ship. Blast it, Jack, my hearty, stock us up and we could lie tucked in the forepeak for a month o' Sundays."
"But the rats and the darkness and the stinks, and to be expecting discovery," was Jack's dreary comment.
"It would ha' looked like a parlor to me when I was on that barren cay and sighted Ned Rackham's rogues coming off from the snow," said the other stowaway. He was beginning to recuperate from the shock.