This
story is a retold version of Jennifer Kirkpatrick's "Blackbeard: Pirate
Terror At Sea" story. This week I wanted to change the focus to a
different pirate. The first two stories involved Captain Morgan,
and this story involves Captain Blackbeard. I chose this story to
retell because it was very entertaining to read. Captain
Blackbeard sounds like he must have been a very mischievous
pirate. My favorite thing about pirate stories is the
adventure. All pirate stories seem to have some sort of battle or
conflict. My retold version of the story will be similar to the
original. The two main differences that I have added
are the character
Master Harry
Mostyn,
and I am going to tell the story from his point of view. Another
aspect that I want to bring out with this story is the comparison
between the two famous pirates, Morgan and Blackbeard. I think
that it will be
interesting to see your reaction to the two pirates.
The boy touched the map at the spot
where it said "Captain Blackbeard's Death." Master Harry Mostyn
appeared again. He began to tell the boy a story . . . .
Hey lad, you have now heard about
some of
my adventures with the great Captain Morgan. Well, now I am going
to tell you about my time spent with Captain Blackbeard's crew.
It all began about five years after joining Captain Morgan. I had
spent a great deal of my time with him and was ready to take an
adventure of my own. I had heard about a huge, wild pirate
get-together from Captain Morgan. This party was to take place at
Ocracoke Island, which was off the coast of North Carolina. The party organizer was Captain
Blackbeard. Captain Morgan had given me one of his
ships a couple years ago. So I took my ship, packed all my stuff,
and headed on my way.
I arrived at Ocracoke Island a couple of weeks later. There were
so many pirate ships docked there. I don't think that I had ever
seen that
many ships in one place. I docked my ship, grabbed my rum,
and headed to the party. I met so many pirates there, but the one
that stood out to me was Captain Blackbeard. I could tell that
Blackbeard was feared by many, and was very highly respected as a
pirate. Our conversation consisted of him telling me about a time
that he stole a bunch of goods from a rich person's ship. I had
to believe this story because he was wearing a ring on his finger that
he had taken from one of the passengers.
I spent many days there at Ocracoke Island, and attended many
parties. It had been such a great time until the morning of the
fourth day. I was woken by gunfire. I looked off in the
distance and saw some Virginia ships firing onto the island. All
of a sudden, Captain Blackbeard snagged the back of my shirt. He
told me to come with him and fight. We ran to his ship and took
sail. Captain Blackbeard steered towards the thin channels.
He had the perfect plan to lead the Royal Navy into treacherous
channels. We led them into the channels, and then all of a
sudden the Royal Navy ship stopped. We jumped onto their ship,
but to our surprise there was no one on deck. All of a sudden I
hear this screaming. I turned around and saw all of the Royal
Navy.
We battled with the Navy for what seemed like forever. The battle
finally ended after about an hour of bloodshed. The Navy finally
retreated, but the damage had been done. We all found out that
Blackbeard had been killed, and that his head was stolen. I was
really sad to hear of his death, but also felt very fortunate to have
fought side by side with him.
Weeks went by and there was no word of where Blackbeard's head ended
up. Finally, about two months later, Blackbeard's head was
found. Maynard, the Royal Navy Captain, had hung Blackbeard's
head in the middle of Virginia for all the pirates to see. It was
supposed to be a warning
to us, but I wasn't buying it. I had decided that the next
several months was going to be reserved for tracking Maynard down.
Master Harry Mostyn faded away and the boy was so excited
to have heard such a great story. He wanted to
hear more stories from the young pirate. So the boy quickly
picked up the map again to see what adventure was next . . . .
