refit the
ship. The mate on watch greeted them good-humoredly enough and bade them
enter the cabin where the captain awaited them. Jack was all a-flutter
again but he managed to imitate Joe's careless swagger.

Blackbeard lounged at his ease in a huge chair of carven ebony which
might have been filched from some stately East Indiaman or a ship of the
Grand Mogul himself. He had flung off his coat and the sleeves of a
shirt of damask silk were rolled to the elbow. Instead of the great,
mildewed sea-boots he wore slippers of crimson leather embroidered with
threads of gold. Gorgeous cushions, pieces of plate, costly apparel
strewed the cabin in barbaric confusion.

What the two lads gazed at, however, was this bizarre figure of a despot
who held the power of life and death. It was one of his quieter
interludes when he laid aside the ferocious and bombastic play-acting
which made it hard to discover whether he was very cunning or half-mad.
The immense beard flowed down his chest instead of being tricked out in
gaudy ribbons. He was idly running a comb through it when his small,
rum-reddened eyes took in the two lads in dripping clothes who were
shoved toward him by the sentry guarding the hatch.

Blackbeard let a hairy hand stray to clutch one of the pistols kept on
the table beside him. Jack Cockrell gulped and stole a frightened glance
at Joe Hawkridge who winked and nudged him. There was some small comfort
in this. Spellbound, they stared at the pistol and then at the pirate's
massive forearm on which a skull and cross-bones was pricked in India
ink. At this moment Jack earnestly wished himself back on the raft. The
barrel of the pistol looked as big as a blunderbuss.

With a yawn, Blackbeard reached for a silver bowl of Brazil nuts,
cracked one of them with the pistol-butt and roared for the black cabin
boy who came running with a flask of Canary wine and a goblet. Jack
Cockrell's sigh of relief sounded like a porpoise coming up for air. He
was not to be shot at once. Suddenly Blackbeard exclaimed, in that
husky, growling voice of his:

"I saw you rascals through the glass before I came below. What of the
ship I left ye in? Briefly now, and no lies."

Together the lads pieced out the narrative as they had hastily prepared
it. The vital thing was to watch lest they tell a word too much. Jack
stumbled once or twice but his comrade covered it adroitly, and they did
not betray themselves. The sweat trickled into the