“I swear,” said Dickory, as on his knees he took the blood-smeared letter.  He hastily slipped it into the breast of his coat, and then he was barely able to move quick enough to keep the Englishman’s head from striking the deck.

“How now!” sounded a harsh growl at his ear.  “Get you into your cabin or you will be hurt.  It is not time yet for the fleecing of corpses!  I am choking for a glass of brandy.  Get in and stay there!”

In another minute Blackbeard, refreshed, was running aft, the cut through his shoulder bleeding, but entirely forgotten.

There was no fighting now upon the deck of the Revenge; the conflict raged, but it had been transferred to the Badger.  The sailors of the man-of-war had fought valiantly and stoutly, even impetuously, but their enemies—­picked men from two pirate crews—­had fought like wire-muscled devils.  Ablaze with fury they had cut down the Badger’s men, piling them upon their own fallen comrades; they had followed the brave fellows with oaths, cutlasses, and pistols as, little at a time and fighting all the while, they slowly clambered back into their own ship.  The pirates had thrown their grapnels over the bulwarks of the man-of-war; they had followed, cut by cut, shot by shot, until they now stood upon the Badger, fighting with the same fury that they had just fought upon the blood-soaked Revenge.  Blackbeard was not yet with them—­whatever happened, Blackbeard must be refreshed—­but now he sprang into the enemy’s ship—­that fine British man-of-war, the corvette Badger, which had so bravely sailed down upon his ship to capture her—­and led the carnage.

They were tough men, those British seamen, tough in heart, tough in arms and body; they fought above decks and they fought below, and they laid many a pirate scoundrel dead; but they had met a foe which was too strong for them—­a pack of brawny, hairy desperadoes, picked from two pirate crews.  The first officer now commanding, panting, bleeding, and torn, groaned as he saw that his men could fight no longer, and he surrendered the Badger to the pirates.

The great Blackbeard yelled with delight.  When had any other captain sailing under the Jolly Roger captured a British man-of-war, a first-class corvette of the royal navy?  His frenzied joy was so intense that he was on the point of cutting down the officer who was offering him his sword, but he withheld his hand.

“Go, somebody, and fetch me a glass of his Majesty’s rum,” he cried, “and I will drink to his perdition!”

The door of a locker was smashed, the spirits were brought, and the great Blackbeard was again refreshed.

Standing on the quarter-deck where but an hour or two before Captain Christopher Vince had stood commanding his fine corvette as she sailed down upon her pirate enemy, Blackbeard had brought before him all the survivors of the Badger’s crew.

“Well, you’re a lot of damnable knaves,” said he, “and you have cost me many a good man this day.  But my crew will now be short-handed, and if any or all of you will turn pirate and ship with me, I will let bygones pass; but, if any of you choose not that, overboard you go.  I will have no unwilling rascals in my crew.”