Whatever the truth may be, the young naval officer started forth in a sloop he had fitted out and manned, intent on Blackbeard’s capture or death. Although the pirate was apprised of the lieutenant’s approach, he scorned to move from his retreat, but spent the night before the expected visit in striving to outdrink a friendly merchant skipper who had dropped in for a call. Toward daylight, however, Teach’s men saw Maynard approaching, and the pirate, realizing that the officer really meant business, cut his cables, hoisted the Jolly Roger, and let his vessel drift ashore. Here, in the shoal water, he felt sure the sloop could not follow, and as, oddly enough, neither vessel carried cannon and it would be a hand-to-hand conflict, Blackbeard’s ruse was worthy of him. But the one hundred pounds still glittered before the lieutenant’s eyes, and, determined to do or die, he cast everything possible overboard, including the water-casks, set his sails, and headed directly for the pirate vessel. Thereupon Blackbeard, with his slow-matches smoking and sputtering in hair and beard, “hailed him in a most rude manner,” cursed him, defied him, and, to show his utter contempt, stood in plain view upon his ship’s rails and drank a goblet of liquor to Maynard’s damnation. Finding that, even with everything movable jettisoned, his sloop still drew too much water to grapple with the pirate, the lieutenant manned small boats and attempted to board Blackbeard’s craft. He was met with so hot a welcome of musketry and pistols that twenty-nine men were killed and wounded, and the boats retreated to the sloop. Meanwhile the tide was rising, and Maynard’s sloop was constantly drifting closer to the pirate. Still confident of success, the lieutenant ordered all his men below, he alone remaining on deck with the helmsman. Presently, the sloop grated and bumped against the other vessel, and immediately the pirates began to pelt her with fire-grenades. Then, drawing cutlasses and pistols, they sprang over the bulwarks and swarmed upon the sloop’s decks in true melodramatic piratical style. Up from the hold poured Maynard’s men, and hot and furious was the battle. Teach and the lieutenant were face to face. Both fired at the same instant, at point-blank range, but while the officer dodged, Teach was less fortunate, and Maynard’s bullet buried itself in the pirate’s face.