again.

The Governor of Jamaica was a man of hearty sympathies, and these worked
so strongly in him that when Kate and her uncle came to bring him the
good news, he kissed her and vowed that he had not heard anything so
cheering for many a year.

"I have been greatly afraid of that Vince," he said. "Although I did not
mention it, I have been greatly afraid of him; he is a terrible fellow
when he is crossed, and so hot-headed that it is easy to cross him.
There were so many chances of his catching your father and so few
chances of my orders catching him. But it is all right now; you will be
able to reach your father before Vince can possibly get to him, even
should he be able to do him injury in his present position. Your father,
my dear, must have been as mad as a March hare to embark upon a career
of a pirate when all the time his heart was really turned to ways of
peace, to planting, to mercantile pursuits, to domestic joys."

Here, now, was to be a voyage of conquest. No matter what his plans
were; no matter what he said; no matter what he might lose, or how he
might suffer by being taken into captivity and being carried away, Major
Stede Bonnet, late of Bridgetown and still later connected with some
erratic voyages upon the high seas, was to be taken prisoner by his
daughter and carried away to Spanish Town, where the actions of his
disordered mind were to be condoned and where he would be safe from all
vengeful Vinces and from all temptations of the flaunting skull and
bones.

It was a bright morning when, with a fair wind upon her starboard bow,
the sloop Belinda, bearing the jubilant three, sailed southward on her
course to the coast of Honduras; and it was upon that same morning that
the good ship Revenge, bearing the pirate Blackbeard and his handsomely
uniformed lieutenant, sailed northward, the same fair wind upon her port
bow.

CHAPTER XXI

A PROJECTED MARRIAGE

Strange as it may appear, Dickory Charter was not a very unhappy young
fellow as he stood in his fine uniform on the quarter-deck of the
Revenge, the fresh breeze ruffling his brown curls when he lifted his
heavy cocked hat.

True, he was leaving behind him his friends, Captain Bonnet and Ben
Greenway, with whom the wayward Blackbeard would allow no word of
leave-taking; true, he was going, he knew not where, and in the power of
a man noted the new world over for his savage eccentricities; and true,
he might soon be sailing, hour