“Thinking they had won the day and that Maynard’s men were utterly done for, Teach and his crew roared out boisterous songs and taunts and prepared to leap onto the sloop’s decks and butcher the two remaining men and any wounded who might be lying about. A moment later the two vessels touched. With a terrible oath and a savage yell, Blackbeard sprang through the smoke to the sloop’s decks with his shouting crew at his heels, and with swirling, gleaming cutlasses they rushed towards Maynard and his helmsman. Then, up from their hiding place in the hold, poured the sloop’s crew, and instantly the battle raged fast and furiously. The pirates, surprised, gave back a bit, the lieutenant’s men fought like furies, and back and forth across the bloody decks the battle surged. Teach had singled out Maynard and, whipping out pistols, both fired at the same instant. Blackbeard’s shot missed, but the bullet from the lieutenant’s pistol found its mark in the pirate’s face. With blood streaming from the wound and dripping from the braided ends of his long beard, eyes blazing with fury, and yelling with anger and pain, the pirate threw aside his useless pistol and leaped at the lieutenant with swinging cutlass. But Maynard was a splendid swordsman. As Blackbeard, cursing and shouting that he would hack the other’s heart from his body, leaped forward, the officer’s sword met his, steel clanged on steel, and the pirate found himself balked, held off, driven back. “It was a terrible duel,—the struggle of enormous brute strength against skill,—and with terrific slashing blows and savage lunges Blackbeard strove to break down the other’s guard, to disarm him or to snap his blade. Here and there across the decks they fought and swayed and panted, stumbling over dead and wounded men, slipping in pools of blood, bumping into fighting knots of pirates and seamen. Both were bleeding from a dozen wounds, both were near exhaustion, both were spent, and both knew that it was but a question of moments ere one would fall. And then, with a tremendous blow, Blackbeard brought his heavy cutlass swinging down, the lighter blade of the officer’s snapped at the hilt, and with a blood-curdling, triumphant yell the pirate swung his cutlass up, whirled it about his head and aimed a death-dealing blow at Maynard’s head. Quick as a flash the lieutenant leaped aside, the stroke fell short, and Maynard escaped with the loss of three fingers lopped off by that terrible blow.