CHAPTER XVII
AN ORNAMENTED BEARD
{{di|It was about the middle of the afternoon when a large boat, well filled, was seen approaching the Revenge from Blackbeard's vessel. As soon as it had become known that this chief of all pirates of that day, this Edward Thatch of England, was really coming on board the Revenge, not one word was uttered among the crew on the subject of going ashore, although they had been long at sea. The shore could wait when Blackbeard was coming. Even to look upon this doughty desperado would be an honour and a joy to the brawny scoundrels who made up the crew of the Revenge.
It might have been supposed that everything upon Captain Bonnet's vessel had been made ready for the expected advent of Blackbeard, but nothing seemed good enough, nothing seemed as effectively placed and arranged as it might have been; and with execrations and commands, Bonnet hurried here and there, making everything, if possible, more ship-shape than it had been before.
"Stay you two in the background," he said to Ben Greenway and Dickory; "you are both landsmen, and you don't count in a ceremony such as this is going to be. Station your men as I told you, Bittern, and man the yards when it is time."
Captain Bonnet, in his brave uniform and wearing a cocked hat with a feather, his hand upon his sword-hilt, stood up tall and stately. When the boat was made fast and the great pirate's head appeared above the rail, six cannon roared a welcome and Bonnet stepped forward, hand extended and hat uplifted.
The instant Blackbeard's feet touched the deck he drew from their holsters a pair of pistols and fired them in the air.
"Now then," he shouted, "we are even, salute for salute, for my pistols are more than equal to the cannon of any other man. How goes it with you, Sir Nightcap—Bonnet, I mean?" And with that he clasped the hand reached out to him in a bone-crushing grasp.
His fingers aching and his brain astonished, Bonnet could not comprehend what sort of a man it was who stood before him. With hair purposely dishevelled; with his hat more slouched than usual; with his beard divided into tails, each tied with a different-coloured ribbon; with half a dozen pistols strung across his breast; with other pistols and a knife or two stuck into his belt; with his great sword by his side, and his eyes gleaming brighter than ever and a general expression, both in face and figure, of an aggressive impudence, Blackbeard stood on his stout legs, clothed in rough red stockings, and gazed about him. But the captain of the Revenge did not forget his manners. He welcomed Blackbeard with all courtesy and besought him to enter his poor cabin.
Blackbeard laughed. "Poor cabin, say you? But I'll tell you this one thing, my valiant Captain Cap; you have not a poor vessel, not a poor vessel, I swear that to you, my brave captain, I swear that!"
Then, with no attention to Bonnet's invitation, Captain Blackbeard strolled about the deck, examining everything, cursing this and praising that, and followed by Captain Bonnet, Black Paul, and a crowd of admiring pirates.
Ben Greenway bowed his head and groaned. "I doubt if Master Bonnet will ever go to the de'il as I feared he would, for now has the de'il come to him. Oh, Dickory, Dickory! this master o' mine was a worthy mon an' a good ane when I first came to him, an' a' that I hae I owe to him, for I was in sad case, Dickory, very sad case; but now that he has Apollyon for his teacher, he'll cease to know righteousness altogither."
Dickory was angry and out of spirits. "He is a vile poltroon, this master of yours," said he, "consorting with these bloody pirates and leaving his daughter to pine away her days and nights within a little sail of him, while he struts about at the heel of a dirty freebooter dressed like a monkey! He doesn't deserve the daughter he possesses. Oh, that I could find a ship that would take me back to Jamaica! And I would take you too, Ben Greenway, for it is a foul shame that a good man should spend his days in such vile company."
Ben shook his head. "I'll stand by Master Bonnet," he said, "until the day comes when I shall bid him fareweel at the door o' hell. I can go no farther than that, Dickory, no farther than that!"
From forecastle to quarter-deck, from bowsprit to taffrail, Blackbeard scrutinized the Revenge.
"What mean you, dog?" he said to Bittern, Bonnet being at a little distance; "you tell me he is no mariner. This is a brave ship and well appointed."
"Ay, ay," said the sailing-master, "it has the neatness of his kitchen or his storehouses; but if his cables were coiled on his yard-arms or his anchor hung up to dry upon the main shrouds, he would not know that anything was wrong. It was Big Sam Loftus who fitted out the Revenge, and I myself have kept everything in good order and ship-shape ever since I took command."
"Command!" growled Blackbeard. "For a charge of powder I would knock in the side of your head for speaking with such disrespect of the brave Sir Nightcap."
The supper in the cabin of the Revenge was a better meal than the voracious Blackbeard had partaken of for many a year, if indeed he had ever sat down to such a sumptuous repast. Before him was food and drink fit for a stout and hungry sea-faring man, and there were wines and dainties which would have had fit place upon the table of a gentleman.
Blackbeard was in high spirits and tossed off cup after cup and glass after glass of the choicest wine and the most fiery spirits. He clapped his well-mannered host upon the back as he shouted some fragment of a wild sea-song.
"And who is this?" he cried, as they rose from the table and he first caught sight of Ben Greenway. "Is this your chaplain? He looks as sanctimonious as an empty rum cask. And that baby boy there, what do you keep him for? Are they for sale? I would like to buy the boy and let him keep my accounts. I warrant he has enough arithmetic in his head to divide the prize-moneys among the men."
"He is no slave," said Bonnet; "he came to this vessel to bring me a message from my daughter, but he is an ill-bred stripling, and can neither read nor write."
"Then let's kill him!" cried Blackbeard, and drawing his pistol he sent a bullet about two inches above Dickory's head.
At this the men who had gathered themselves at every available point set up a cheer. Never before had they beheld such a magnificent and reckless miscreant.
Dickory did not start or move, but he turned very pale, and then he reddened and his eyes flashed. Blackbeard swore at him a great approbative oath. "A brave boy!" he cried, "and fit to carry messages if for nothing else. And what is this nonsense about a daughter?" said he to Bonnet. "We abide no such creatures in the ranks of the free companions; we drown them like kittens before we hoist the Jolly Roger."
When Blackbeard's boat left the ship's side the departing chieftain fired his pistols in the air as long as their charges lasted, while the motley desperadoes of the Revenge gave him many a parting yell. Then all the boats of the Revenge were lowered, and every man who could crowd into them left their ship for the shore. Black Paul tried to restrain them, for he feared to leave the Revenge too weakly manned, she having such a valuable cargo; but his orders and shouts were of no avail, and despairing of stopping them the sailing-master went with them; and as they pulled wildly towards the town the men of one boat shouted to another, and that one to another, "Hurrah for our captain, the brave Sir Nightcap! Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!"
"The dirty Satan!" exclaimed Dickory, as he gazed after Blackbeard's boat. "I would kill him if I could."
"Say not so, Dickory," said Captain Bonnet, speaking gravely. "That great pirate is not a man of breeding, and he speaks with disesteem alike of friend and enemy, but he is the famous Blackbeard, and we must treat him with honour although he pays us none."
"I had deemed," said Greenway calmly, "that ye were goin' to be the maist unholy sinner that ever blackened this fair earth; but not only did ye tell a pious lie for the sake o' good Dickory, but, compared wi' that monstrosity, ye are a saint graved in marble, Master Bonnet, a white and shapely saint."
Blackbeard's boat was not rowed to his vessel, but his men pulled steadily shoreward.
With the wild crew of the Revenge, fresh from sea and their appetites whetted for jovial riot, and with Blackbeard, his war-paint on, to lead them into every turbulent excess, there were wild times in the town of Belize that night.