ained was a New
Yorker. It had been there over a night and a day, and the captain and
Blackbeard had become very good friends.

The same night that Maynard came into the inlet a wedding was held on
the shore. A number of men and women came up the beach in oxcarts and
sledges; others had come in boats from more distant points and across
the water.

The captain of the New Yorker and Blackbeard went ashore together a
little after dark. The New Yorker had been aboard of the pirate's sloop
for all the latter part of the afternoon, and he and Blackbeard had been
drinking together in the cabin. The New York man was now a little tipsy,
and he laughed and talked foolishly as he and Blackbeard were rowed
ashore. The pirate sat grim and silent.

It was nearly dark when they stepped ashore on the beach. The New York
captain stumbled and fell headlong, rolling over and over, and the crew
of the boat burst out laughing.

The people had already begun to dance in an open shed fronting upon the
shore. There were fires of pine knots in front of the building, lighting
up the interior with a red glare. A negro was playing a fiddle somewhere
inside, and the shed was filled with a crowd of grotesque dancing
figures--men and women. Now and then they called with loud voices as
they danced, and the squeaking of the fiddle sounded incessantly through
the noise of outcries and the stamp and shuffling of feet.

Captain Teach and the New York captain stood looking on. The New York
man had tilted himself against a post and stood there holding one arm
around it, supporting himself. He waved the other hand foolishly in time
to the music, now and then snapping his thumb and finger.

The young woman who had just been married approached the two. She had
been dancing, and she was warm and red, her hair blowzed about her head.
"Hi, Captain, won't you dance with me?" she said to Blackbeard.

Blackbeard stared at her. "Who be you?" he said.

She burst out laughing. "You look as if you'd eat a body," she cried.

Blackbeard's face gradually relaxed. "Why, to be sure, you're a brazen
one, for all the world," he said. "Well, I'll dance with you, that I
will. I'll dance the heart out of you."

He pushed forward, thrusting aside with his elbow the newly made
husband. The man, who saw that Blackbeard had been drinking, burst out
laughing, and the other men and women who had been standing around drew
away, so that in a little while the floor was pretty we