A Sea Too Far by Hank Manley Page A

the devil’s realm from whence ye came.”
    Marty Read stepped around Warren and faced the French sailor directly. He raised his weapon in front of his right shoulder and quickly lowered it to point at his opponent’s chest. “Drop thy sword and live,” he said. “I’ve no desire to draw thy blood, though if needed, I’ll oblige.”
    The Frenchman hesitated for a moment as if contemplating Marty’s offer to surrender. He looked briefly around Marseilles’s deck and saw that more than twenty pirates had jumped from Queen Anne’s Revenge and now swarmed over the French merchant vessel’s deck.
    Two pistol shots had sounded immediately after Blackbeard’s invasion of the French ship. Individual sword battles raged in several areas of the merchant vessel. The sharp clanking of steel against steel reverberated over the tumultuous scene.
    Marty Read slashed once at the Frenchman’s motionless sword. The violent blow shook the weapon in the man’s hand. A second, rapidly delivered, backhand swing extracted the sword from the Frenchman’s hand. The blade flew in the salty air, tumbled once, and came to rest tip first in the wooded deck.
    Warren stepped forward, grabbed the swaying sword, and yanked it from the planking. An instant later Marty Read jabbed the point of his weapon against the French sailor’s throat. A thin line of blood appeared and began to trickle down the vanquished man’s bare chest.
    “Cease thy fight,” Marty said. “Can ye not see we outnumber thee and can easily outfight thee?”
    “Aye,” the Frenchman said with resignation. “It be only me duty that I do. But I vouch it does not include suicide.”
    Conchshell skidded to a halt at Warren’s feet. The Labrador looked at her master and barked approval of the bright sword he was now brandishing. The dog had landed on Marseilles’s deck under Blackbeard’s powerful arm. The captain had released his grip and dropped her to the deck in front of a band of armed French sailors. She had barked fiercely at the men.
    Blackbeard had rolled back his head and roared with delight at the prospect of facing his enemy. His beard swayed from side to side as he scanned the several men before him as if deciding which to vanquish first. Swirls of smoke wreathed his scowling countenance and disconcertingly merry eyes.
    The captain yanked the pistol from his sash and aimed at the head of one of the Frenchmen. He pulled the trigger and laughed as the man cringed while the lead ball whistled past his ear. He exchanged the discharged pistol for a second, loaded weapon, and fired again. The deliberate miss caused the merchantmen to retreat into a corner of the fighting deck.
    “Lay down thy swords, me lads,” Blackbeard warned. “Lest I cut thy throats and allow me feisty cur to feast on thy gizzards.”
    “Is nothing sacred to thee heathens?” one of the Frenchmen said. “We mean ye no harm.”
    Blackbeard laughed. “Aye. It’s me wallet that be sacred to me. If thy life be sacred to thee, lay down thy arms and soon you’ll be under way again.”
    One of the merchantmen tightened the grip on his sword and held it in front of his chest. “You’ll let us go free?” he asked incredulously.
    “Aye,” Blackbeard nodded with dancing eyes. “I’ll let thee free, less thy cargo, of course. But at least thy necks will not be stretched nor thy throats severed.”
    The Marseilles’s captain stepped forward from the group of sailors. “Me name be Pierre Michaud,” he said. He raised his sword and dexterously flipped it in the air, catching the handle in his fist with his thumb up before the tip hit the deck. He reached toward Blackbeard and offered the weapon.
    “Nay, pirate, it be thy neck, not mine, that’s destined to be stretched,” Captain Michaud said calmly. “Or perhaps it be thy head chopped loose at the neck from thy body. But for today, the cargo of the Marseilles is yours to do with as ye wishes. We offer no more resistance.”

~14~