n, sir," said Dickory.

"So far so good," said Captain Ichabod. "I am very glad that I did not
bring down my cutlass on you, which I should have done, bedad, had it
not been for this young woman."

Now up spoke Mr. Delaplaine. "We have found you, Dickory," he cried,
"but what can you tell us of Major Bonnet?"

"Ay, ay," added Captain Ichabod, "there's another one we're after;
where's the runaway Sir Nightcap?"

"Alas!" said Dickory, "I do not know. I escaped from Blackbeard, and
since that day have heard nothing. I had supposed that Captain Bonnet
was in your company, Mr. Delaplaine."

Now the captain of the Black Swan pushed himself forward. "Is it Captain
Bonnet, lately of the pirate ship Revenge, that you're talking about?"
he asked. "If so, I may tell you something of him. I am lately from
Charles Town, and the talk there was that Blackbeard was lying outside
the harbour in Stede Bonnet's old vessel, and that Bonnet had lately
joined him. I did not venture out of port until I had had certain news
that these pirates had sailed northward. They had two or three ships,
and the talk was that they were bound to the Virginias, and perhaps
still farther north. They were fitted out for a long cruise."

"Gone again!" exclaimed Mr. Delaplaine in a hoarse voice. "Gone again!"

Captain Ichabod's face grew clouded.

"Gone north of Charles Town," he exclaimed, "that's bad, bedad, that's
very bad. You are sure he did not sail southward?" he asked of the
captain of the brig.

That gruff mariner was in a strange state of mind. He had just been
captured by a pirate, and in the next moment had made, what might be a
very profitable sale, to a respectable merchant, of the goods the pirate
was about to take from him. Moreover, the said pirate seemed to be in
the employ of said merchant, and altogether, things seemed to him to be
in as fearsome a mix as they had seemed to Captain Ichabod, but he
brought his mind down to the question he had been asked.

"No doubt about that," said he; "there were some of his men in the
town--for they are afraid of nobody--and they were not backward in
talking."

"That upsets things badly," said Captain Ichabod, without unclouding his
brow. "With my slow vessel and my empty purse, bedad, I don't see how I
am ever goin' to catch Blackbeard if he has gone north. Finding
Blackbeard would have been a handful of trumps to me, but the game seems
to be up, bedad."

The captain of the brig and Ichabod