Oddly enough, the one man of Blackbeard’s crew who escaped unscathed was his sailing-master, Israel Hands, the selfsame man whom Teach had wounded in the knee a short time previously, and who, owing to his late captain’s practical joke, was ashore nursing his injured leg at the time of Maynard’s attack. CHAPTER IV ON THE WAY TO ST. JOHN Sam had assured me that there were many relics of buccaneer days on St. John, and in St. Thomas his statements had been confirmed by several persons. Moreover, the names of many a bay and cove that broke the coast-line of this near-by neighbor of St. Thomas were associated with the buccaneers, and so, although I had originally planned to pass it by and set sail direct for Anegada, I changed my itinerary to include this neglected Eden of the Virgins. Sam had rounded up the crew—who, considering that St. Thomas is supposedly “dry,” were, with the exception of Joe, extremely hilarious—and had them safe aboard and under his watchful eye the evening preceding our departure; for the Bahaman, unlike the majority of his race, never believed in putting off until the morrow what could be done the night before. Many an old-time friend of pre-American days had I met in Charlotte Amalie, and many a toast to the success of my cruise had been drunk in delectable guava-berry cordial and other beverages dear to the Danish West Indians,—a fine, hospitable, easygoing lot,—and it was with real regret that I bade them farewell. Hardly had the first rosy tints of approaching dawn lightened the eastern sky when Sam routed out his men. The creak and purr of tackle and sheave broke the silence of the sleeping harbor, the capstan clanked and clattered to the rhythm of shuffling black feet upon the deck, and the Vigilant glided slowly from the land as the sun rose above the gently swaying cocoanut-palms and transformed the ancient schooner’s sails to cloth of gold. To the west as we cleared the land, and looming sharply in the morning light, rose Sail Rock, more than ever the very semblance of a ship. And, my mind filled with thoughts of pirate and of buccaneer, I could picture the solitary pinnacle as a great galleon sailing majestically southward through the narrow channel. There, shimmering in the sun, was the high, ornate stern; along the low, dark waist the creamy foam sparkled brightly; upward in towering pyramids soared the huge, square sails; and toward her—like a falcon after a helpless gull—the Vigilant swept. How often, I wondered, had the little schooner’s bowsprit swung toward some distant gleam of sail? How many times had her dark-skinned, fierce-faced crew run out the long guns and sent round shot hurtling through the hull and rigging of a prize? And then Sam spoke: “Tha’ Sail Rock mos’ cert’n’y do have th’ aspec’ o’ a ship, Chief. Did y’ ever hear o’ th’ ’casion when one o’ th’ ’Merican battle-ships fired on th’ rock for a target, an’ th’ Danes made plenty o’ rumpus an’ humbuggin’ ’bout it?”