Now there followed on the decks of that sloop one of the most fearful
hand-to-hand combats known to naval history. Pirates had often attacked
vessels where they met with strong resistance, but never had a gang of
sea-robbers fallen in with such bold and skilled antagonists as those
who now confronted Blackbeard and his crew. At it they went,--cut, fire,
slash, bang, howl, and shout. Steel clashed, pistols blazed, smoke went
up, and blood ran down, and it was hard in the confusion for a man to
tell friend from foe. Blackbeard was everywhere, bounding from side to
side, as he swung his cutlass high and low, and though many a shot was
fired at him, and many a rush made in his direction, every now and then
a sailor went down beneath his whirling blade.
But the great pirate had not boarded that ship to fight with common men.
He was looking for Maynard, the commander. Soon he met him, and for the
first time in his life he found his match. Maynard was a practised
swordsman, and no matter how hard and how swiftly came down the cutlass
of the pirate, his strokes were always evaded, and the sword of the
Virginian played more dangerously near him. At last Blackbeard, finding
that he could not cut down his enemy, suddenly drew a pistol, and was
about to empty its barrels into the very face of his opponent, when
Maynard sent his sword-blade into the throat of the furious pirate; the
great Blackbeard went down upon his back on the deck, and in the next
moment Maynard put an end to his nefarious career.
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