erly laid, and would have
succeeded, only that a Portuguese negro among the pirate crew turned
traitor and carried the news ashore to the governor of the fort.
Accordingly, the next day, when Captain Davis came ashore, he found
there a good strong guard drawn up as though to honor his coming. But
after he and those with him were fairly out of their boat, and well away
from the water side, there was a sudden rattle of musketry, a cloud of
smoke, and a dull groan or two. Only one man ran out from under that
pungent cloud, jumped into the boat, and rowed away; and when it lifted,
there lay Captain Davis and his companions all of a heap, like a pile of
old clothes.

Capt. Bartholomew Roberts was the particular and especial pupil
of Davis, and when that worthy met his death so suddenly and so
unexpectedly in the unfortunate manner above narrated, he was chosen
unanimously as the captain of the fleet, and he was a worthy pupil of
a worthy master. Many were the poor fluttering merchant ducks that this
sea hawk swooped upon and struck; and cleanly and cleverly were they
plucked before his savage clutch loosened its hold upon them.

"He made a gallant figure," says the old narrator, "being dressed in a
rich crimson waistcoat and breeches and red feather in his hat, a gold
chain around his neck, with a diamond cross hanging to it, a sword in
his hand, and two pair of pistols hanging at the end of a silk sling
flung over his shoulders according to the fashion of the pyrates."
Thus he appeared in the last engagement which he fought--that with the
Swallow--a royal sloop of war. A gallant fight they made of it, those
bulldog pirates, for, finding themselves caught in a trap betwixt the
man-of-war and the shore, they determined to bear down upon the king's
vessel, fire a slapping broadside into her, and then try to get away,
trusting to luck in the doing, and hoping that their enemy might be
crippled by their fire.

Captain Roberts himself was the first to fall at the return fire of the
Swallow; a grapeshot struck him in the neck, and he fell forward across
the gun near to which he was standing at the time. A certain fellow
named Stevenson, who was at the helm, saw him fall, and thought he was
wounded. At the lifting of the arm the body rolled over upon the deck,
and the man saw that the captain was dead. "Whereupon," says the old
history, "he" [Stevenson] "gushed into tears, and wished that the next
shot might be his portion." Aft