Page:Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates (1921).djvu/200

Rh The sound of the squeaking and scraping of the fiddle and the shouts and the scuffling feet still came from the shed where the dancing was going on.

“Suppose you get your dose to-morrow, Captain,” some one called out, “what then?”

“Why, if I do,” said Blackbeard, “I get it, and that’s all there is of it.”

“Your wife’ll be a rich widdy then, won’t she?” cried one of the men; and there was a burst of laughter.

“Why,” said the New York captain,—“why, has a—a bloody p-pirate like you a wife then—a—like any honest man?”

“She’ll be no richer than she is now,” said Blackbeard.

“She knows where you’ve hid your money, anyways. Don’t she, Captain?” called out a voice.

“The divil knows where I’ve hid my money,” said Blackbeard, “and I know where I’ve hid it; and the longest liver of the twain will git it all. And that’s all there is of it.”

The gray of early day was beginning to show in the east when Blackbeard and the New York captain came down to the landing together. The New York captain swayed and toppled this way and that as he walked, now falling against Blackbeard, and now staggering away from him.

Early in the morning—perhaps eight o’clock—Lieutenant Maynard sent a boat from the schooner over to the settlement, which lay some four or five miles distant. A number of men stood lounging on the landing, watching the approach of the boat. The men rowed close up to the wharf, and there lay upon their oars, while the boatswain of the schooner, who was in command of the boat, stood up and asked if there was any man there who could pilot them over the shoals.

Nobody answered, but all stared stupidly at him. After a Rh