"As you may imagine, this kind of talk nearly turned me sick with fear, and right in the midst of it Pharaoh Daggs came on deck.
"He had that empty sort of glare in his eyes that we used to see sometimes when he was drunk. Of course, he walked straight and even, but as he came over toward us, with his teeth showing and his eyes fixed on a point just above the pirate's shoulder, I almost yelled 'Look out!' If I had, it might have cost me my life right there. He walked along, light on his toes like a cat, till he stood two feet from us. Then, so fast I hardly knew what happened, he hit the other man on the chin with his fist. That was all. The man dropped with his head back against the rail. And Daggs went off, chuckling to himself but not making any noise. I don't think he saw me at all, for his attack was more like the work of a mad dog than of a man.
"I crept away and got below decks as fast as might be, and there I stayed hidden till after dark, when some of the buccaneers rousted me out. A keg of rum had been opened in the waist, and the liquor was going freely. Most of the crew were already drunk, but they had the sense to chain me by one leg to the foremast, and then made me run back and forth between them and the barrel. I was only too glad. No cannikin was skimped while I was at the spigot. I looked around and remembered some of the wild nights we had seen on the old Revenge. And then for the first time I realized that the deck I stood on was the same! They'd gotten hold of the old black sloop when she was auctioned at Charles Town, patched up her bottom and here she was—buccaneering once more! Where the gang of cut-throats aboard her were gathered, I don't know, but they put Stede Bonnet's famous crew to shame.
"Pharaoh Daggs was somewhere ashore with two of the crew till nearly midnight. When he returned, the rest were lying like pigs about the deck. He had sobered slightly—enough to remember the night's undertaking—but it was useless to think of rousing those sots to any sort of endeavor. He kicked one or two of them savagely with his heavy boot, too, but it got hardly more than a grunt from them.
"He stood there cursing for a minute, then came over and looked at the shackle that held me to the foremast-foot, and shook it to make sure it was solid before he went below. He had something done up in a cloth that he held mighty tenderly, and he seemed in a better humor.
"I curled up on the deck and by wrapping myself in a greatcoat which I found beside one of the drunken pirates, succeeded in keeping reasonably warm.
"When morning came Daggs and his mulatto mate managed to wake most of the men and forced them to get out and forage for wood and water, while they themselves crossed the ridge to reconnoitre. I think it was about two hours after sunrise when those of us who stayed aboard the sloop saw figures running down the hill. The buccaneers got out boarding-pikes and picked up cutlasses, but in a moment Daggs reached the side, out of breath with his haste.
"'There's a ten-gun schooner in the northern cove!' he cried. 'They're landing a boat now. We haven't any time to lose—the tide's past full already! Cut those moorings!'
"The hemp lines were slashed through with cutlasses and the men, with one accord, jumped to the push-holes. The sloop was on an even keel and just off the bottom. A few strong shoves started her down the creek.
"My hopes of escaping began to go down, for there I was, still chained to the fore-stick like a cow put out to grass. I looked around me in desperation, for I wanted to leave you some sign at least of my whereabouts. Then my eye fell on a little heap of small arms that had been thrown down near the forehatch. The pistols were useless to me, as I had no powder, but among them I saw the bright silver mountings of my own—the one that used to be Stede Bonnet's.