“Oh, father, father!” panted Kate, “please row away.  What if they should now jump down upon us?”

“Good-day, good-day, my brave Captain Sorby,” said Bonnet, “we must e’en row away; we have other craft to visit, but would first do honour to you and your bold crew.”

Captain Sorby lifted high his great bespattered hat, and every grinning demon of the crew waved hat or rag or pail or cutlass and set up a discordant yell in honour of their departing visitors.

“Oh! go not to another, father,” pleaded Kate, her pale face in tears; “visit no more of them, I pray you!”

“Ay, truly, keep away from them,” said Mr. Delaplaine.  “I am no coward, but I vow to you that I shall die of fright if I come close to another of those floating hells.”

“And these,” said Kate to herself, her eyes fixed out over the sea, “these are his friends, his companions, the wretches of whom he is so proud.”

“There are no more vessels like that in port,” said Bonnet; “that’s the most celebrated sloop.  Those we shall now call upon are commanded by men of milder mien; some of them you could not tell from plain merchantmen were you not informed of their illustrious careers.”

“If you go near another pirate ship,” cried Dame Charter, “I shall jump overboard; I cannot help it.”

“Row back to the Belinda, brother-in-law,” said Mr. Delaplaine in a strong, hard voice; “your tour of pleasure is not fit for tender-hearted women, nor, I grant it, for gentlemen of my station.”

“There are other ships whose captains I know,” said Bonnet, “and where you would have been well received; but if your nerves are not strong enough for the courtesies I have to offer, we will return to the Belinda.”

When safe again on board their vessel, after the sudden termination of their projected tour of calls on pirates, Kate took her father aside and entered into earnest conversation with him, while Mr. Delaplaine, much ruffled in his temper, although in general of a most mild disposition, said aside to Dame Charter:  “He is as mad as a March hare.  What other parent on this earth would convey his fair young daughter into the society of these vile wild beasts, which in his eyes are valiant heroes?  We must get him back with us, Dame Charter, we must get him back.  And if he cannot be constrained by love and goodwill to a decent and a Christian life, we must shut him up.  And if his daughter weeps and raves, we must e’en stiffen our determination and shut him up.  It shall be my purpose now to hasten the return of the brig.  There’s room enough for all, and he and the Scotchman must go back with us.  The Governor shall deal with him; and, whether it be on my estate or behind strong bars, he shall spend the rest of his days upon the island of Jamaica, and so know the sea no more.”

He was very much roused, this good merchant, and when he was roused he was not slow to act.

The captain of the Belinda was very willing to make a profitable voyage back to Jamaica, but his vessel must be well laden before he could do this.  Goods enough there were at Belize for that purpose, for Blackbeard’s supplies were all for sale, and his chief clerk, Bonnet, had the selling of them.  So, all parties being like-minded, the Belinda soon began to take on goods for Kingston.