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PAGE 27

Blackbeard; Or, The Pirate Of Roanoke
by [?]

Although the Fury had managed to outsail the sloop-of-war, on the day previous to the events above related, the captain of the latter, well knowing that the island of Trinidad had long been a piratical rendezvous, naturally supposed that the brig would stop there, and as he made the land just before night-fall he determined the next day to explore the island, hoping that he might thereby be enabled to trace the desperadoes to their lurking-place.

The wind changing during the night, brought the Vengeance, next morning, some few miles to the leeward of the island, on the side opposite from that where the Fury had grounded, so that it was late in the afternoon before she could get near enough to lower her boats.

Just before, however, the order was given to embark the several boat’s crews, the man on the look-out exclaimed:

‘There is something close alongside here, which looks like a boat.’

The captain of the Vengeance, upon going forward to see what the strange thing might be, was greatly astonished at being hailed as follows:

‘Ship ahoy. For the love of Heaven stop and take on board two helpless women, who have but just escaped from the pirates.’

This request was speedily acceded to, the sails of the Vengeance were hove aback, and the next moment Arthur Huntington, accompanied by Ellen Armstrong and the pirate’s wife, were safe upon her deck, where the former lost no time in making the captain of the Vengeance acquainted with the events which had that day transpired, whilst Elvira volunteered to direct the officer who had been entrusted with the command of the boats, to the pirate’s palace, which otherwise he might not have found.

Before midnight, the whole party who had landed upon the island in the morning, met each other once again, upon the deck of the Vengeance, and many and sincere were the thanks they returned to Heaven for their deliverance out of the murderous hands of the pirate of the Roanoke.

* * * * *

Five years after the occurrence of the singular events above narrated, the mansion of Lord Armstrong, situated near the mouth of the Roanoke river, in the province of North Carolina, was brilliantly illuminated, as if for a season of great rejoicing. And such indeed was the fact. Soon after night-fall a gay party had assembled in the earl’s parlor, and shortly afterwards entered Henry Huntington, holding by the hand the fair and stately Mary Hamilton, immediately followed by his brother Arthur and sweet Ellen Armstrong, the whole party being succeeded by a clergyman, attired in the sacerdotal robes of the church of Rome.

That night, dear reader, witnessed the consummation of a double bridal.

Elvira, the pirate’s wife, and her daughter Violette, were present at the wedding, and so was Misther Pat O’Leary, who afterwards declared that ‘by the powers of mud, it was indade the pleasantest night he had iver passed in his life, so it was.’

Kind reader, it only remains for us to say that the descendants of Arthur and Henry Huntington still continue to reside upon the pleasant banks of the Roanoke, and often take great pleasure in recounting to each other the exploits of the far-famed Blackbeard, and the providential and almost miraculous escape of their ancestors from the blood-stained hands of Herbert and Roderick Rowland.