The unfortunate wretches, with their hands tied behind them, were
compelled, one by one, to mount a plank which was projected over the
side of the vessel and balanced like a see-saw, and when, prodded by
knives and cutlasses, they stepped out upon this plank, of course it
tipped up, and down they went into the sea. In this way, men, women, and
children slipped out of sight among the waves as the vessel sailed
merrily on.
In one branch of his new profession Bonnet rapidly became proficient. He
was an insatiable robber and a cruel conqueror. He captured merchant
vessels all along the coast as high up as New England, and then he came
down again and stopped for a while before Charles Town harbor, where he
took a couple of prizes, and then put into one of the North Carolina
harbors, where it was always easy for a pirate vessel to refit and get
ready for further adventures.
Bonnet's vessel was named the _Revenge_, which was about as ill suited
to the vessel as her commander was ill fitted to sail her, for Bonnet
had nobody to revenge himself upon unless, indeed, it were his scolding
wife. But a good many pirate ships were then called the _Revenge_, and
Bonnet was bound to follow the fashion, whatever it might be.
Very soon after he had stood upon the quarter-deck and proclaimed
himself a pirate his men had discovered that he knew no more about
sailing than he knew about painting portraits, and although there were
under-officers who directed all the nautical operations, the mass of the
crew conceived a great contempt for a landsman captain.
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