ong the
sand-dunes and the stunted trees. And the _Plymouth Adventure_ had
disappeared leaving no trace excepting scattered bits of floating
wreckage.

The pirate ship headed to follow the coast to the northward, on the
chance that Ned Rackham's prize crew might have made a landing
elsewhere. To Jack Cockrell the gift of life had been miraculously
vouchsafed him and he felt secure for the moment. Joe's theory seemed
plausible, that the pirates had abandoned the _Plymouth Adventure_ in
time to avert drowning with her, and were driven away from the bight and
the beach by Captain Wellsby's well-armed sailors.

"Do they know Blackbeard's rendezvous in the North Carolina waters,
Joe?" was the natural query. "Are they likely to make their way thither,
knowing that honest men will slay them at sight?"

"The swamps and the murderous Indians will take full toll of 'em, Jack.
I believe we have seen the last of those rogues, but I'd rest better
could I know for certain."

"Meanwhile this mad Blackbeard may be taken in one of his savage
frenzies and shoot me for sport," said young Master Cockrell, for whom
existence had come to be one hazard after another.

"He seems strangely tame, much like a human soul," observed Joe. "I
ne'er beheld him like this. He plots some huge mischief, methinks."

And now the ship's officers drove the men to their work but they were
less abusive than usual. They seemed to reflect Blackbeard's milder
humor and it was manifest that they wished to avoid the crew's
resentment. Joe Hawkridge was puzzled and began to ferret it out among
his friends who were trustworthy. They had their own suspicions and the
general opinion was that Blackbeard was in great dread of encountering
Captain Stede Bonnet in the _Royal James_. It seemed that the _Revenge_
had spoken a disabled merchant ship just after the storm and her skipper
reported that he had been overhauled by Stede Bonnet a few days earlier
and the best of his cargo stolen. Blackbeard had been seized with
violent rage but had suffered the ship to proceed on her way because of
his own short-handed condition.

With a prize crew lost in the _Plymouth Adventure_, including
Sailing-Master Ned Rackham, and the two sloops of the squadron missing
with all hands, the terrible Blackbeard was in poor shape to meet this
Captain Bonnet who hated him beyond measure. As if this were not gloomy
enough, there were men in the _Revenge_ eager to sail under Bonnet's
flag