and you shall eat her. Disobey me!" And he swore at such a rate
that he panted for fresh air and mounted to the deck.

It was not a time for Dickory to make remarks indicating his disapproval
of the proposed arrangement.

As the Revenge sailed on over sunny seas or under lowering clouds,
Dickory was no stranger to the binnacle, and the compass always told him
that they were sailing eastward. He had once asked Blackbeard where they
now were by the chart, but that gracious gentleman of the midnight beard
had given him oaths for answers, and had told him that if the captain
knew where the ship was on any particular hour or minute nobody else on
that ship need trouble his head about it. But at last the course of the
Revenge was changed a little, and she sailed northward. Then Dickory
spoke with one of the mildest of the mates upon the subject of their
progress, and the man made known to him that they were now about
half-way through the Windward passage. Dickory started back. He knew
something of the geography of those seas.

"Why, then," he cried, "we have passed Jamaica!"

"Of course we have," said the man, and if it had not been for Dickory's
uniform he would have sworn at him.

CHAPTER XXII

BLADE TO BLADE

When the corvette Badger sailed from Jamaica she moved among the islands
of the Caribbean Sea as if she had been a modern vessel propelled by a
steam-engine. That which represented a steam-engine in this case was the
fiery brain of Captain Christopher Vince of his Majesty's navy. More
than winds, more than currents, this brain made its power felt upon the
course and progress of the vessel.

Calling at every port where information might possibly be gained,
hailing every sloop or ship or fishing-smack which might have sighted
the pirate ship Revenge, with a constant lookout for a black flag,
Captain Vince kept his engine steadily at work.

But it was not in pursuit of a ship that the swift keel of the Badger
cut through the sea, this way and that, now on a long course, now
doubling back again, like a hound fancying he has got the scent of a
hare, then raging wildly when he finds the scent is false; it was in
pursuit of a woman that every sail was spread, that the lookout swept
the sea, and that the hot brain of the captain worked steadily and hard.
This English man-of-war was on a cruise to make Kate Bonnet the bride of
its captain. The heart of this naval lover was very steady; it was fixed
in its pu