-robbers fallen in with such bold and skilled antagonists as those
who now confronted Blackbeard and his crew. At it they went,--cut, fire,
slash, bang, howl, and shout. Steel clashed, pistols blazed, smoke went
up, and blood ran down, and it was hard in the confusion for a man to
tell friend from foe. Blackbeard was everywhere, bounding from side to
side, as he swung his cutlass high and low, and though many a shot was
fired at him, and many a rush made in his direction, every now and then
a sailor went down beneath his whirling blade.

But the great pirate had not boarded that ship to fight with common men.
He was looking for Maynard, the commander. Soon he met him, and for the
first time in his life he found his match. Maynard was a practised
swordsman, and no matter how hard and how swiftly came down the cutlass
of the pirate, his strokes were always evaded, and the sword of the
Virginian played more dangerously near him. At last Blackbeard, finding
that he could not cut down his enemy, suddenly drew a pistol, and was
about to empty its barrels into the very face of his opponent, when
Maynard sent his sword-blade into the throat of the furious pirate; the
great Blackbeard went down upon his back on the deck, and in the next
moment Maynard put an end to his nefarious career. Their leader dead,
the few pirates who were left alive gave up the fight, and sprang
overboard, hoping to be able to swim ashore, and the victory of the
Virginians was complete.

The strength, toughness, and extraordinary vitality of these feline
human beings, who were known as pirates, has often occasioned
astonishment in ordinary people. Their sun-tanned and hairy bodies
seemed to be made of something like wire, leather, and India rubber,
upon which the most tremendous exertions, and even the infliction of
severe wounds, made but little impression. Before Blackbeard fell, he
received from Maynard and others no less than twenty-five wounds, and
yet he fought fearlessly to the last, and when the panting officer
sheathed his sword, he felt that he had performed a most signal deed of
valor.

When they had broken up the pirate nest in Ocracoke Inlet, the two
sloops sailed to Bath, where they compelled some of the unscrupulous
town officials to surrender the cargo which had been stolen from the
French vessel and stored in the town by Blackbeard; then they sailed
proudly back to Hampton Roads, with the head of the dreaded Blackbeard
dangling from t