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deliverance when they should have gained enough and should break up
their company.

I confessed to him ingenuously that my nerve was quite shook amid
these horrible surroundings, and I durst scarce tell him to count
upon me.

"I am not very easy frightened," said he, "nor very easy beat."

A few days after, there befell an accident which had nearly hanged
us all; and offers the most extraordinary picture of the folly that
ruled in our concerns. We were all pretty drunk: and some
bedlamite spying a sail, Teach put the ship about in chase without
a glance, and we began to bustle up the arms and boast of the
horrors that should follow. I observed Ballantrae stood quiet in
the bows, looking under the shade of his hand; but for my part,
true to my policy among these savages, I was at work with the
busiest and passing Irish jests for their diversion.

"Run up the colours," cries Teach. "Show the -s the Jolly Roger!"

It was the merest drunken braggadocio at such a stage, and might
have lost us a valuable prize; but I thought it no part of mine to
reason, and I ran up the black flag with my own hand.

Ballantrae steps presently aft with a smile upon his face.

"You may perhaps like to know, you drunken dog," says he, "that you
are chasing a king's ship."

Teach roared him the lie; but he ran at the same time to the
bulwarks, and so did they all. I have never seen so many drunken
men struck suddenly sober. The cruiser had gone about, upon our
impudent display of colours; she was just then filling on the new
tack; her ensign blew out quite plain to see; and even as we
stared, there came a puff of smoke, and then a report, and a shot
plunged in the waves a good way short of us. Some ran to the
ropes, and got the SARAH round with an incredible swiftness. One
fellow fell on the rum barrel, which stood broached upon the deck,
and rolled it promptly overboard. On my part, I made for the Jolly
Roger, struck it, tossed it in the sea; and could have flung myself
after, so vexed was I with our mismanagement. As for Teach, he
grew as pale as death, and incontinently went down to his cabin.
Only twice he came on deck that afternoon; went to the taffrail;
took a long look at the king's ship, which was still on the horizon
heading after us; and then, without speech, back to his cabin. You
may say he deserted us; and if it had not been for one very capable
sailor we had on board, and for the lightness of the airs that blew
all day, we must certainly have gone to the yard-arm.

It is to be supposed Teach was humiliated, and perhaps alarmed for
his position with the crew; and the way in which he set about
regaining what he had lost, was highly characteristic of the man.
Early next day we smelled him burning sulphur in his cabin and
crying out of "Hell, hell!" which was well understood among the
crew, and filled their minds with apprehension. Presently he comes
on deck, a perfect figure of fun, his face blacked, his hair and

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