CHAPTER XXIII.
THE ADDRESS OF THE LETTER There was hard and ghastly work that day when the Revenge was cleared after action, and there was lively and interesting work on board the Badger when Blackbeard and his officers went over the captured vessel to discover what new possessions they had won.
At first Blackbeard had thought to establish himself upon the corvette and abandon the Revenge.

It would have been such a grand thing to scourge the seas in a British man-of-war with the Jolly Roger floating over her.

But this would have been too dangerous; the combined naval force of England in American waters would have been united to put down such presumption.

So the wary pirate curbed his ambition.
Everything portable and valuable was stripped from the Badger--her guns would have been taken had it been practicable to ship them to the Revenge in a rising sea--and then she was scuttled, fired, and cast off, and with her dead on board she passed out of commission in the royal navy.
During the turmoil, the horror and the bringing aboard of pillage, Dickory Charter had kept close below deck, his face in his hands and his heart almost broken.

It is so easy for young hearts to almost break.
When he had seen the British ship come sailing down upon them, hope had sprung up brightly in his heart; now there was a chance of his escaping from this hell of the waves.