kbeard to the Governor of North Carolina and makes his
neck safe by surrendering to the proclamation--albeit he kept tight
clutch upon what he had already gained.

And now we find our bold Captain Blackbeard established in the good
province of North Carolina, where he and His Worship the Governor
struck up a vast deal of intimacy, as profitable as it was pleasant.
There is something very pretty in the thought of the bold sea rover
giving up his adventurous life (excepting now and then an excursion
against a trader or two in the neighboring sound, when the need of
money was pressing); settling quietly down into the routine of old
colonial life, with a young wife of sixteen at his side, who made the
fourteenth that he had in various ports here and there in the world.

Becoming tired of an inactive life, Blackbeard afterward resumed his
piratical career. He cruised around in the rivers and inlets and
sounds of North Carolina for a while, ruling the roost and with never
a one to say him nay, until there was no bearing with such a pest any
longer. So they sent a deputation up to the Governor of Virginia
asking if he would be pleased to help them in their trouble.

There were two men-of-war lying at Kicquetan, in the James River, at
the time. To them the Governor of Virginia applies, and plucky
Lieutenant Maynard, of the _Pearl_, was sent to Ocracoke Inlet to
fight this pirate who ruled it down there so like the cock of a walk.
There he found Blackbeard waiting for him, and as ready for a fight as
ever the lieutenant himself could be. Fight they did, and while it
lasted it was as pretty a piece of business of its kind as one could
wish to see. Blackbeard drained a glass of grog, wishing the
lieutenant luck in getting aboard of him, fired a broadside, blew some
twenty of the lieutenant's men out of existence, and totally crippled
one of his little sloops for the balance of the fight. After that, and
under cover of the smoke, the pirate and his men boarded the other
sloop, and then followed a fine old-fashioned hand-to-hand conflict
betwixt him and the lieutenant. First they fired their pistols, and
then they took to it with cutlasses--right, left, up and down, cut and
slash--until the lieutenant's cutlass broke short off at the hilt.
Then Blackbeard would have finished him off handsomely, only up steps
one of the lieutenant's men and fetches him a great slash over the
neck, so that the lieutenant came off with no more hurt t