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A false hope, as it would turn out
All was quiet, just Maynard’s increasingly hysterical shrieking as we crouched hidden behind the gunwale How many men were still left alive on the sloop, we had no real way of telling, but one of us was confident at least
“We’ve knocked them on their heads except three or four,” shouted Blackbeard He earing his black hat, I noticed, and he’d lit the fuses in his beard and was shrouded in slowed like a devil “Let’s jump aboard and cut them to pieces”
Only three or four? There had to be more of them left alive than that, surely?
But by then our two hulls had bumped, and with a shout, Blackbeard led us over the side of the Adventure and onto the British sloop, roaring a brutal warrior yell as the men flooded towards Maynard and the first mate at the tiller
But Maynard, he was as good a performer as my friend Mary Read For as soon as our dozen pirates boarded his ship, that wild hysterical look left his face He shouted, “Now, men, now!” and a hatch in the quarter-deck opened and the trap was sprung
They’d been hiding fro us on board Now out they cae-water, two dozen of the of steel, the popping of gunshot and the screams filled the air
A edto the side to avoid a fountain of blood and snot that erupted from his nose Inme, “Kenway”
He was doith a leg bleeding badly, defending hiun I tossed hi at him with raised cutlass
He was dead, though We both knew it We all knew it
“In a world without gold, we could have been heroes!” he shouted as they teemed over him
Maynard led a renewed attack upon hi his ne his sword Maynard screeched, his hand gushing criuard broken Fro Edward on the shoulder and sending hi his sword as the enemy moved in on him remorselessly
Around us I could see ave one of theirover e that my next attacker would die the salance over and see Edward dying by a thousand cuts, on his knees but fighting still, surrounded by vultures who hacked and chopped at him with their blades
With a shout of frustration and anger I stood and whirled with outstretched hands,backwards I snatched the initiative, shooting forward and kicking the man in front of me so that I could leap off his chest and face and I broke through the barrier ofme In the air my blades flashed and twothe deck with an audible slap I landed, then sprang across the deck to help my friend
But I never ress, a huge brute of aat such speed that neither of us could stop the unwale and into the water below
I saw one thing before I fell I saw my friend’s throat open and blood sheet down his front, his eyes rolling to the top of his head as Blackbeard fell for a final time
FORTY-SIX