a large party of his men. This
heartless pirate had not wanted to take all of his followers into port,
because they might prove troublesome and expensive to him, and so he had
put a number of them on this island, to live or die as the case might
be. Bonnet went over to this island, and finding the greater part of
these men still surviving, he offered to take them to St. Thomas in his
vessel if they would agree to work the ship to port. This proposition
was of course joyfully accepted, and very soon the _Revenge_ was manned
with a complete crew of competent desperadoes.

All these operations took a good deal of time, and, at last, when
everything was ready for Bonnet to start out on his piratical cruise, he
received information which caused him to change his mind, and to set
forth on an errand of a very different kind. He had supposed that
Blackbeard, whom he had never forgiven for the shameful and treacherous
manner in which he had treated him, was still on shore enjoying himself,
but he was told by the captain of a small trading vessel that the old
pirate was preparing for another cruise, and that he was then in
Ocracoke Inlet. Now Bonnet folded his arms and stamped his feet upon the
quarter-deck. The time had come for him to show that the name of his
vessel meant something. Never before had he had an opportunity for
revenging himself on anybody, but now that hour had arrived. He would
revenge himself upon Blackbeard!

The implacable Bonnet sailed out to sea in a truly warlike frame of
mind. He was not going forth to prey upon unresisting merchantmen; he
was on his way to punish a black-hearted pirate, a faithless scoundrel,
who had not only acted knavishly toward the world in general, but had
behaved most disloyally and disrespectfully toward a fellow pirate
chief. If he could once run the _Revenge_ alongside the ship of the
perfidious Blackbeard, he would show him what a green hand could do.

When Bonnet reached Ocracoke Inlet, he was deeply disappointed to find
that Blackbeard had left that harbor, but he did not give up the
pursuit. He made hot chase after the vessel of his pirate enemy, keeping
a sharp lookout in hopes of discovering some signs of him. If the
enraged Bonnet could have met the ferocious Blackbeard face to face,
there might have been a combat which would have relieved the world of
two atrocious villains, and Captain Maynard would have been deprived of
the honor of having slain the most famous pir