The Black Buccaneer

Job Howland's long legs, clad as they were in nothing more cumbersome than a pair of under-breeches, made light work of hills and ravines as he held his way steadily up the Dela...

Jeremy realized that his life would be in danger if Daggs saw him coming on deck after what had just happened. He lay still, therefore, in spite of his desire to tell Bob what h...

The boys, intent upon this awful scene, turned as a shout from Job Howland swelled above the uproar. The big gunner was at the breach of his swivel-gun, ramrod in hand. The litt...

When they woke it was to the regular heave and lurch of a sailing vessel in motion, and Jeremy, looking out the port, beheld the crisp, sparkling blue of open sea.

The boy was pale and haggard and so weak he could hardly stand alone, but he looked about him with an eager grin as Tom and Jeremy helped him toward the companion.

As the pirate sloop raced southward under full sail, the form of the other ship became steadily plainer. She was a brig, high-pooped, and tall-masted, and apparently deeply lade...

There were brave days aboard the _Queen_ as she voyaged up the coast--days of sun and light winds when the boys sat lazily in the blue shadow of the sails, looking off through h...

The _Royal James_ hurried down the Chesapeake for a day and a night before Captain Bonnet gave orders to free the young prisoners below in the bilboes. Jeremy and Bob came on de...

A rough hand shook him awake. He was lying in a dingy bunk somewhere in the gloom of the cramped forecastle. "Come, young'un," growled a voice, strange to Jeremy, "you've slept...

Little by little the _Tiger_ pulled up to windward of the buccaneer and the men below in the gun deck could be heard cheering as their advance brought the black sloop more and m...

A stiff easterly breeze whitened the gray seas next morning. It was cloudy and seemed to be getting ready for a blow. The pirate and her prize had drifted all night, bound toget...

The fog held for two days. On the third morning Jeremy, on his knees by the hearth fire, was squinting down the bright barrel of a flintlock. He had been quiet for a long time....

Jeremy, stumbling on deck at eight bells, pulled his seaman's greatcoat up about his ears, for the breeze came cold. He worked his way forward along the high weather rail and to...

It was the savory smell of cooking hominy and the sizzle of broiling fish that woke Jeremy next morning. He drew a breath of pure ecstasy, rolled over and began pummelling the i...

"No, lad, the risk is too great. Ye'd be in worse plight than before, if they caught ye, and with a score of the ruffians searching the island over, ye'd run too long a chance....

The day came in dark with fog, which changed a little after noon to driving scud. The wind had gone around to the northeast and freshened steadily, driving the waves in from the...

It had been about the beginning of September when the pirate fleet had sighted the live oaks on the bars of the Cape Fear River. To Bob and Jeremy those first days were uneventf...

One of the first things a backwoods boy learns is that it pays to mind your own business, _after_ you know what the other fellow is going to do. Jeremy had been threshing his br...

The gray November morning dawned damp and cold. In the sheer exhaustion that followed on their adventure of the night before, Jeremy and his father slept heavily till close to n...

The fair weather held and for several days the little fleet cruised west by south, then southerly when they had picked up the Virginia Capes. The pirate crew, in spite of their...

Jeremy's first waking sensation was the sound of a hoarse confused shout and the rattle of oars being shipped. He struggled to his feet, staring into the dark astern. Almost at...

Meanwhile the _Royal James_ was far up inside the Capes, sailing demurely along, the ports of her gun deck closed and the British colors fluttering from her top. Jeremy watched...

The events of that night made a terribly clear impression on the mind of the young New Englander. Years afterward he would wake with a shiver, imagining that the relentless hand...

The boys and their luggage were on their way to Wilmington in the family chaise before dawn, and it was scarce seven o'clock when they bade farewell to the old colored serving-m...

Two boys turned loose on a present-day farm can find enough interesting things to do to fill a book much larger than this. For me to go into the details of that week's visit to...

The mist was sweeping past in swirls and streaks, and though the wind had abated somewhat, the _Tiger_ still ploughed along into the obscurity at a fair rate of speed. Jeremy st...

The bo's'n, a grizzled veteran of many sea-fights, was kneeling beside his Captain with an ear to his side. There was hope in the man's face when at length he looked up.

Bright summer weather hovered over the Atlantic as the _Revenge_ ploughed smartly southward. Jeremy grew more accustomed to his new manner of life from day to day and as he foun...

On the morning of the 15th of July, 1718, anyone who had been standing on the low rocks of the Penobscot bay shore might have seen a large, clumsy boat of hewn planking making i...

As she cleared the side of the waterlogged merchantman, the _Royal James_ began to move. Her sails which had been left flapping during the close fighting, now filled with a bang...

When the gang of buccaneers had tumbled down the hatch after Jeremy's cry of warning, Job Howland, barely awake, had leaped to the narrow angle that made the forward end of the...

There was a bustle of action aboard the sloop when the boys swarmed up her side. One chanty was being sung up forward, where half a dozen sturdy seamen were heaving at the capst...

The "salt horse" which was served out for breakfast aboard the _Royal James_ made scant appeal to the Delaware boy's appetite. He hardly touched the portion which Jeremy offered...

It was growing dark already in the dense fir growth that covered the hillside, and when Jeremy suddenly stepped upon the moss at the brink of a deep spring, he had to catch a br...

It was on the second morning after the boys had reached New York that the _Indian Queen_ went down the harbor, her canvas drawing merrily in the spanking breeze of dawn. The int...

The shelter that Amos Swan had built stood on a small bare knoll, at an elevation of fifty or sixty feet above the sea. Behind it and sheltering it from easterly and southerly w...