Historic Events of Colonial Days

by Rupert Sargent Holland

The gun-smoke drifted away across the water, and Park, at Nick's suggestion, headed his boat for shore. The dark man had no wish to sail up to the sloops from Charles Town just then, thinking it not unlikely that some of the crew might remember him as Blackbeard's agent at the Charles Town dock. So they skirted the shore till they reached a good landing-place. There they camped, binding the sailor's wounded shoulder as best they could, cooking dinner, for they were all ravenously hungry, and resting on the sand. There the sailor, Peter Duval, told them how angry Governor Johnson and the men of Charles Town had been when Blackbeard had sailed away with his medicines, leaving Samuel Wragg and the others, plundered and almost stripped, to find their way home; and how Colonel Rhett had sworn that with two sloops he would rid the sea of the pirate, and had sailed forth to do it. In return Antony told the sailor who he was and they planned that in a day or two they would return home. "And Nick there is going back with me," added Antony, nodding toward the dark young fellow who sat on the beach with them.

Now Duval had heard how Blackbeard or some of his men had kidnapped the son of Jonas Evans, and he had his own suspicions concerning what manner of man this dark-haired fellow might be. Yet he could not help liking the man, who had certainly helped to do him a good turn; and even if he had been a pirate there was no reason why he shouldn't have changed his mind about that way of living and have decided to become an honest citizen. So he nodded his head approvingly, and said, "That's good. The old town needs some likely-looking men," and shifted about so that the warm sand made a more comfortable pillow for his wounded shoulder.

Next day they sailed back to Simeon Park's cabin, and there Nick discovered a pair of shears and cut his black mustache and cropped his hair close, so that he looked more like one of the English Roundheads than he did like a sea-rover. "Now, mates," said he to Antony and Duval, "I'm a wandering trader you happened to meet in the woods. Tony stole away from Blackbeard's men one night, and found Park's cabin here. Then I came along, and a day or two later the three of us picked Duval out of the sea. What d'ye say to that, mates?"

"I say," said Duval, winking, "that with the lad and me to speak up for you, they'll be glad to have you in Charles Town, whatever you may be." He added sagely, "Folks aren't over particular in the colonies about your granddaddy. Many of 'em came over from the old country without questions asked as to why they came. No, sir; if a man deals square by us, we deal square by him."

The following afternoon Simeon Park's boat tacked across the bay, and zigzagged up to the Charles Town docks. At sundown his three passengers landed, and bade him a hearty farewell. Few people were about, and none, as it chanced, who knew them, so that the three walked straightway up the street along the harbor, Nick in the middle, looking as innocent as if he had never seen the town before.

The Evans family lived in a small frame house on Meeting Street, and husband and wife were just sitting down to supper when there came a knock at the street door. Jonas Evans opened the door, and his son sprang in and caught him around the shoulders. "Here I am, dad!" he cried. "Safe and sound again!" After that bear-like squeeze he rushed to his mother, and gave her the same greeting, while she exclaimed, and kissed him again and again, and called him all her pet names.

"And I've brought a friend home with me, Nicholas Carter," said Antony. "I met him along the coast, and he's been very good to me, so you must be good to him. He's a splendid fellow," he added loyally. "And he and a fisherman and I pulled Peter Duval out of the water after the big sea-fight the other day."

"Any friend of my boy's is my friend," said Mr. Evans, and he caught Nick by the hand and drew him into the house. Then he shook hands with Duval, and so did Mrs. Evans, almost crying in her delight at having her son home again, and they both urged the sailor to stay and have supper with them, but he said that now that he had seen his two mates safely home he must dash away to his own family.

Antony and Nick sat at the supper-table and ate their fill while Jonas Evans told them the news. Colonel Rhett had sailed out from Charles Town with his two sloops and after a great battle had captured the pirate ship. He thought he had captured Blackbeard, but found he was mistaken. The pirate had turned out to be a man named Stede Bonnet, a man who came of a good family and owned some property, a gentleman one might say, a man who had been a major in the army, and a worthy citizen of Bridgetown. Once he had repented of his pirate's life, and taken the King's pardon, but he had gone back to his lawless trade, and been one of the fiercest of his kind. No one in Charles Town could understand why such a man had a liking for such a business. Mr. Evans supposed that it must be because of the wild adventures that went with the career of the sea-rovers. Here Antony caught a smile on Nick's face, and knew that his friend was thinking there were many reasons why respectable fellows turned outlaws. Some drifted into it, as Nick had done as a boy, and found it easier to stay in than to leave.