en they had done this he knocked out the wedge with a single
blow and the twelve hands were caught tight in the closing wood. Struggle
as the savages might, they could not get free, and after calmly enjoying
the situation for a few minutes he walked slowly from one to the other
and split open the heads of all six. Then he went to work again splitting
up more chestnuts.

THE WATCHER ON WHITE ISLAND

The isles of Shoals, a little archipelago of wind and wave-swept rocks
that may be seen on clear days from the New Hampshire coast, have been
the scene of some mishaps and some crimes. On Boone Island, where the
Nottingham galley went down one hundred and fifty years ago, the
survivors turned cannibals to escape starvation, while Haley's Island is
peopled by shipwrecked Spanish ghosts that hail vessels and beg for
passage back to their country. The pirate Teach, or Blackbeard, used to
put in at these islands to hide his treasure, and one of his lieutenants
spent some time on White Island with a beautiful girl whom he had
abducted from her home in Scotland and who, in spite of his rough life,
had learned to love him. It was while walking with her on this rock,
forgetful of his trade and the crimes he had been stained with, that one
of his men ran up to report a sail that was standing toward the islands.
The pirate ship was quickly prepared for action, but before embarking,
mindful of possible flight or captivity, the lieutenant made his mistress
swear that she would guard the buried treasure if it should be till
doomsday.

The ship he was hurrying to meet came smoothly on until the pirate craft
was well in range, when ports flew open along the stranger's sides, guns
were run out, and a heavy broadside splintered through the planks of the
robber galley. It was a man-of-war, not a merchantman, that had run
Blackbeard down. The war-ship closed and grappled with the corsair, but
while the sailors were standing at the chains ready to leap aboard and
complete the subjugation of the outlaws a mass of flame burst from the
pirate ship, both vessels were hurled in fragments through the air, and a
roar went for miles along the sea. Blackbeard's lieutenant had fired the
magazine rather than submit to capture, and had blown the two ships into
a common ruin. A few of both crews floated to the islands on planks, sore
from burns and bruises, but none survived the cold and hunger of the
winter. The pirate's mistress was among the first