"But will not that be dangerous, sir?" asked Mr. Delaplaine.
"Oh, no," said the other. "I know Blackbeard, and we have played many a game together. You and your family need not have anything to do with it.
I'll board the Revenge, and you may wager, bedad, that I'll bring Sir Nightcap back to you by the ear."
"But there's another," said Delaplaine; "there's a young man belonging to my party--"
"Oh, yes, I know," said the other, "the young fellow Blackbeard took away with him. Clapped a cocked hat on him, bedad! That was a good joke!
I will bring him too. One old man, one young man--I'll fetch 'em both.
Then I'll take you all where you want to go to. That is, as near as I can get to it, bedad. Now, you tell your ladies about this, and I'll have my sloop cleaned up a bit, and as soon as I can get my water on board I'm ready to hoist anchor."
"But look you, sir," exclaimed Mr. Delaplaine, "this is a very important matter, and cannot be decided so quickly."
"Oh, don't mention it, don't mention it," said Captain Ichabod; "just you tell your ladies all about it, and I'll be ready to sail almost any time to-morrow."
"But, sir--" cried the merchant.
"Very good," said the pirate captain, "you talk it over. I'm going to the town now and I'll row out to you this afternoon and get your instructions."
And with this he got over the side.
Mr. Delaplaine said nothing of this visit, but waited on deck until the captain came on board, and then many were the questions he asked about the pirate Ichabod.
"Well, well!" the captain exclaimed, "that's just like him; he's a rare one. Ichabod is not his name, of course, and I'm told he belongs to a good English family--a younger son, and having taken his inheritance, he invested it in a sloop and turned pirate. He has had some pretty good fortune, I hear, in that line, but it hasn't profited him much, for he is a terrible gambler, and all that he makes by his prizes he loses at cards, so he is nearly always poor. Blackbeard sometimes helps him, so I have heard--which he ought to do, for the old pirate has won bags of money from him--but he is known as a good fellow, and to be trusted. I have heard of his sailing a long way back to Belize to pay a gambling debt he owed, he having captured a merchantman in the meantime."
"Very honourable, indeed," remarked Mr. Delaplaine.
"As pirates go, a white crow," said the other. "Now, sir, if you and your ladies want to go to Blackbeard, and a rare desire is that, I swear, you cannot do better than let Captain Ichabod take you. You will be safe, I am sure of that, and there is every reason to think he will find his man."