“As is often the case, Teach, just when he felt himself safest, was in the most imminent peril. The munificent reward offered for his death or capture had proved a tempting bait, and a brave young naval officer, Lieutenant Maynard of H.M.S. Pearl, had made up his mind to pocket that one hundred pounds and several of the forty pound rewards as well. Gathering together a few brave and tried friends and old shipmates, Maynard manned a small sloop, loaded it with a plentiful supply of arms and ammunition and, having learned of Blackbeard’s whereabouts, set sail for Ocracoke. Long before the gallant lieutenant came within sight of the pirates’ lair, however, Teach had word of his coming, but this only amused the black-whiskered corsair. It would serve to enliven a dull day, and he and his men looked forward with pleasurable anticipation to Maynard’s arrival. “But the villainous pirate little knew the manner of man who was coming to attack him. As the day dawned, those on the pirate ship saw the sloop approaching, and, realizing that his situation in the exposed anchorage was not well adapted to defensive tactics, Blackbeard cut his cable, hoisted the black flag and allowed his vessel to drift upon the mudflats with the tide. This was a tactful move, for Maynard’s craft drew too much water to come to grips with the pirate, and as neither vessel carried cannon, the battle would have to be a hand-to-hand combat, and the pirates would have every advantage, as their enemies would be compelled to board them. But the lieutenant had no intention of giving the pirates any advantage he could avoid. He was out to get Blackbeard, dead or alive, and he meant to succeed. Throwing over his ballast, together with anchors, fittings, water casks and spare spars, Maynard lightened his sloop until she could pass over the flats, and then, hoisting sail, he bore down upon the stranded pirate craft. “Blackbeard, with lighted fuses glowing in his hair and beard, drawn cutlass and pistols in hand, leaped upon the rail, ‘hailed him in a rude manner and cursed most horribly,’ as the old accounts tell us, and then, in a bit of bravado, raised a glass of grog and in full view of his enemies drank to ‘the damnation of the attackers.’ “Even with the lightened sloop, Maynard found, however, that he could not come to grips with Teach’s vessel, and so, piling his men into small boats, the lieutenant headed for the stranded pirate, intending to board her. But long before they could gain the vessel’s sides they were met with such a galling musketry fire that they were compelled to retreat with twenty-nine men killed and wounded. “This was, indeed, a wretched beginning, but Maynard was a resourceful man and, ordering his men below decks, so that only himself and the helmsman remained in sight, he allowed his sails to flap and swing as though he had no men able to handle the sloop and with the slowly rising tide crept constantly closer to the pirates.