In appearance he was as fierce and repulsive as in character. He was of large size, powerfully built, hairy, with a mane-like beard which, black as his heart, grew up to his very eyes. This beard he twisted into four long tails, tied with ribbons, two of which he tucked behind his outstanding ears, and two over his shoulders. His hair was like a mat and grew low over his forehead. In fact, little of the skin of his face was visible, his fierce eyes glaring from a visage like that of a baboon. In fighting, it was his custom to stick lighted fuses under his hat, the glare of which, reflected in his jet-like eyes, greatly increased the ferocity of his appearance. Teach was an execrable rascal, who ruled his ship by terror. The worst of his crew admitted him master of horror as well as of men. It was his custom ever and anon to shoot a member of his crew, whenever the fancy pleased him, in order that they should remember that he was captain. Blackbeard is famous in the annals of piracy for his idea of a pleasant entertainment. One afternoon, when his ship was lying becalmed, the pirates found the time pass heavily. They had polished their weapons till they shone like silver. They had gambled until one-half of the company was swollen with plunder and the other half, penniless and savage. They had fought until there was nothing left to fight about, and it was too hot to sleep. At this, Teach, hatless and shoeless, and, says his biographer, "a little flushed with drink"--as a man might be who spent most of his waking hours swigging pure rum--stumbled up on deck and made a proposal to his bored companions. "I'm a better man than any o' you alive, an' I'll be a better man when we all go below. Here's for proving it!" At which he routed up half a dozen of the most hardened of the crew, kicked them down into the hold, joined them himself and closed the hatches. There in the close, hot hold, smelling of a thousand odors, they set fire to "several pots full of brimstone and other inflammable matters" and did their best to reproduce what they thought to be the atmosphere of the Pit. One by one, the rest gave in and burst for the comparatively free air of the deck, but Teach's ugly head was the last to come up the hatch, and his pride thereon was inordinate. It was the surest road to the Captain's good favors to remind him of his prowess in that stench-hole on a tropic afternoon. Teach's death was worthy of his life. Lieutenant Maynard of H. M. S. _Pearl_ learned that Teach was resting in a quiet cove near Okracoke Inlet, not far from Hatteras, N. C. He followed the pirate in a small sloop. Teach ran his craft ashore. Maynard was determined to get alongside the pirate, so with desperate haste he began to throw his ballast overboard. More than that, he staved in every water cask, until, feeling that he had enough freeboard, he slipped his anchor, set his mainsail and jib, and bore down upon the stranded sea robber.