Chapter one
Capitan Pike
It was a dark and quiet night near the port, where all of the pirate ships stay before they sail. There were no lights on the street, and the only sounds were the laughing and singing behind the closed door of a bar called The Blue Dolphin. A man wearing a black pirate hat opened the door of the Blue Dolphin. He had a black patch over one eye and a scar on one side of his face. Everyone suddenly became quiet. A sailor at the bar asked the barman:
"Who's that?"
"That is Captain Pike, the greatest pirate in all the world. They say he's stolen from the Queen of England, the King of France and the King of Spain."
Captain Pike walked slowly around the tables looking closely at each man with his cold, grey eye. He had a very serious and cold way of talking.
"I'm looking for sailors and I need the best there are around."
A big man in a white and blue shirt with a blue scarf around his neck stood up in front of Captain Pike.
"You won't find anyone stronger than I am, Captain. Tell me where to put my name and I'm ready to sail."
Captain Pike looked into the man's eyes. His eyes were blue like the sea. Captain Pike's eye became narrower as he talked to the man.
"I'm sailing to the Bermuda Triangle to get Blackbeard's treasure."
The man in front of him slowly sat down. Others began to whisper. The barman said to the sailor:
"Nobody has ever found Blackbeard's treasure. They say it was lost somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle. All those who have tried to find it have never returned."
Captain Pike continued to walk among the men. He knew it would be difficult to find men to go with him, so he talked about the treasure to excite them.
"They say there are diamonds as big as your nose; rubies, gold, pearls. Blackbeard was a pirate like us. It's in our blood. I'm sure he would want other pirates to have it."
Suddenly a loud scream came from a dark corner near the stairs. A very old man with thin white hair and a shining gold tooth walked out from the darkness to talk to the men. A large white bird sat on his shoulder.
"You don't know what you're saying! That treasure must always stay with Blackbeard's ghost, on his ship. It is his punishment for hurting the natives of the islands. Go to Rum Island. The natives there will tell you the story."
Captain Pike looked down at the man, angry because he was trying to start trouble. He wanted to kill the man with his knife, but instead he reached into his coat and took a bag full of gold coins out of his pocket. He put it on one of the tables next to a long white piece of paper he had.
"I've got one hundred gold coins here. I'll give one to every man that puts his name on this piece of paper and sails with me tomorrow, at midnight."
The men forgot what the old man said when they saw the gold coins. They ran to sign their names. Captain Pike stared at the old man once more. The old man looked at him too, and left the bar with his bird. Captain Pike yelled to the bartender:
"Bartender! Drinks for everyone! We sail tomorrow."
Chapter two
Blackbeard's Treasure
The sun was shining brightly on the blue water of the Atlantic Ocean. A beautiful big ship with large, white sails and the English flag was sailing towards the Bermuda Triangle. The ship's name was the Queen Anne, and it was going to the Bermuda Triangle to trade gold. The captain of the ship was in his cabin, writing in his log-book.
Sunday 10th of December 1712
It is the seventeenth day of our voyage and still no island in sight. The men are beginning to complain, and I am afraid they are going to create problems.
A knock at the door stopped the captain from writing.
"Enter."
"Captain, a strange ship is sailing towards us. It has no flag so we don't know where it comes from. They need you on the bridge."
"I'll be up in a moment."
The crewman closed the door and the captain wrote one more sentence in the log-book.
Our luck may have just changed.
The strange ship was half a mile from the Queen Anne. It looked old and abandoned. The captain brought his telescope up to his eye.
"Sail close to it and we'll see if anyone is on board."
One of the crewmen flashed a light three times quickly, waited one second, then flashed it two more times. There was no answer.
"Open the cannons and sail next to it."
The strange ship moved slowly through the water; there seemed to be no one on board. The sails had holes in them, and there was broken wood all over its deck. The captain called over to it.
"I am Captain Scott, serving Her Majesty the Queen. If anyone is aboard, state your name and who you serve."
There was no answer.
"Lower the boats! We're going aboard!"
Captain Scott and twelve of his men rowed two small boats from the Queen Anne to the empty ship. A rope ladder was hanging down from the ship's side. The captain and his men used it to climb on board.
There was no one on board. The captain and his men looked around the ship, but they found nothing. There was no one at the wheel, but the ship somehow continued sailing.
"I've never seen anything like it, Captain."
"Neither have I, and I don't like it. Let's follow it and see where it goes."
They were ready to leave, when one of the men saw a chest, at the side of the ship, under some old fishing nets. They took off the nets and broke the old, black lock. Inside, they saw beautiful shining diamonds, pearls and gold. The men were stunned into silence. The captain looked at one of the gold coins. It had the picture of King Edward VI on it.
"This coin is over one hundred years old. It is not even in use anymore."
"What should we do with it, Captain?"
"I don't see why we should leave it here when there is no one on board. Close it and we'll take it with us."
When all the men were looking at the treasure, something like a black shadow came to the top of the stairs going down to the cabins below. It stayed back in the darkness of the stairs until the men moved the chest to their boats. No one could see it, but the shadow was really a ghost that looked like a pirate. He wore a long blue coat and had a shining silver sword at his side. He had a red scarf around his head and a long thick black beard. He followed the men to their boat and sat on top of the chest. No one could see him, but it was Blackbeard, and the treasure was his to watch.
Chapter three
The Queen Anne
All the men of the Queen Anne were waiting on deck when Captain Scott returned. One of them yelled to the boats after he saw the chest.
"What have you brought us there, Captain?"
Another man answered:
"It's gold and rubies and diamonds!"
The captain didn't want the men to get too excited, because he didn't know if he should keep the treasure.
"That's enough. I want that treasure taken below with our own gold until I decide what we'll do with it."
Two men carried the chest below with Blackbeard still on top of it. A man named Stubbs spoke to the captain about the treasure.
"Will we give a little of it to each of the men for the long journey?"
"I don't know. I've got a strange feeling about that treasure, but I'm not sure why. I think it's better to leave it alone for a while."
"But Captain, we've been sailing for seventeen days and we still haven't seen an island. The men need some encouragement."
"The men shall carry out their duties and be happy with that. They will get exactly what I promised them."
The two men who carried Blackbeard and his treasure below put the chest down to wait for the captain. One of the men, Smith, sat on the chest to tie his shoe. The other was standing, smoking a pipe. Blackbeard stood and watched the men with a smile on his face. He knew they couldn't see him, so he knocked Smith's hat off his head. Smith thought the other man did it.
"What do you think you're doing?"
"What are you talking about?"
"You knocked my hat off."
"You're crazy. I was standing here smoking my pipe."
The men were about to fight when Captain Scott walked down the stairs.
"What's going on down here?"
"Nothing, Captain."
The Captain opened the lock on the door.
"Put it inside next to the Queen's gold."
The Queen's gold was in a chest the same size as Blackbeard's treasure, but it looked new. The wood was clean and the lock on it was gold. Blackbeard's chest was old and grey.
Blackbeard watched the men put the chest down. Smith stayed behind when the other man left. He opened Blackbeard's chest, took out some of the treasure and put it in his trouser pocket.
"Smith! What are you doing in there?"
"Coming Captain!"
Blackbeard followed Smith out as the captain locked the door.
Chapter four
Blackbread's True Love
The men on Captain Pike's ship were very different from the British sailors of the Queen Anne. They played cards all night, and if they lost, they fought with each other. They were only sailing to the Bermuda Triangle to find Blackbeard's treasure and steal anything else they could. Their ship looked like the Queen Anne, except for the flag flying above the sails. It was black, with a white skull and crossbones on it. This was the mark of the pirates.
Some of the men were about to throw a man into the sea for cheating at cards when Captain Pike stopped them.
"What's going on here? Are you trying to kill each other before we find the gold?"
"This one was trying to cheat us at cards. We can't have that, can we?"
"That we can't my friend, but we're waiting for a treasure much bigger than the one you play cards for. Put him in the stocks for a day and let him think about things there."
The stocks were two pieces of wood with three round holes in them. The men placed the prisoner's head and hands in the holes. Then, they lowered the top and they locked him inside. He had to stand up the whole time.
Captain Pike was standing next to his First Mate, Santiago, at the wheel of the ship. Santiago asked him about the danger of finding Blackbeard's Treasure.
"They say no one can take Blackbeard's treasure. Why do you think you can?"
"I think that Blackbeard and I are the same kind of pirate. He wanted everything, and he knew how to get it. When I see that treasure, when I put my hands on it, there's nothing that can make me lose it."
There was a pirate in a small seat above the sails, looking at the ocean through a telescope. This was called the crow's nest, and he was the first to see Blackbeard's ship sailing ahead of them. He whistled to the men below:
"Ship, straight ahead!"
Captain Pike put a telescope up to his eye. He saw Blackbeard's empty ship, then yelled to the man who was steering.
"Go straight for it! This is what we're looking for!"
Captain Pike and some of his men went aboard the empty ship, but they couldn't find any treasure. Santiago thought they made a mistake.
"Maybe this isn't Blackbeard's ship. It could be a ship lost at sea."
"There's only one way to find out."
Captain Pike went below to Blackbeard's cabin and Santiago followed him. It was dark and the captain had to light a candle. He walked with the candle to one of the cabin walls where there was a round, old picture of a woman. She was a beautiful dark woman with large, dark round eyes. Her black hair was tied at the back of her head, and she had a gold necklace with a round, green stone around her neck.
"Who is it Captain?"
"It's a woman who was once the Queen of one of these islands. They say Blackbeard was in love with her. They say she was the reason for his death. He came here to marry her and give her all of the jewels he had. No one ever saw him again, and no one's ever found the treasure. This must be his ship."
They went upstairs and Captain Pike told his men to begin taking up the boards on deck to see if the treasure was hidden and where. While the men were doing this, Pike saw a clear rectangular spot left by the chest after Captain Scott took it. The whole deck was grey and dirty except for this one spot where the chest was for so many years.
"Stop!"
The men stopped searching and looked at Captain Pike. He raised his hand in the air and looked at the clean spot on the deck.
"Someone has been here before us!"
Chapter five
The Wrong Chest
The Queen Anne sailed for a few more days, but it couldn't find the Bermuda Triangle. The men were getting angry. Captain Scott heard more and more talk about the treasure, so he decided to call the men and speak to them.
"I know that a lot of you want to see these islands. I want you to know that you will be handsomely paid for this long voyage. Wait a little longer and you will be rewarded."
Blackbeard's ghost was walking behind the men as the captain talked. Smith, the man who stole some of Blackbeard's treasure, was standing in the front where Captain Scott could see him. He still had the jewels in his pocket, and Blackbeard knew this. Because no one could see him, he put his hand in Smith's pocket and threw the jewels on the deck in front of Smith. The others thought Smith dropped something, but when they saw the beautiful diamonds and the gold necklace, they looked at Smith to see what he would say.
"Captain, I don't know how they got there. It was him that put them there."
He pointed at a man. He was the man who had helped him carry the chest aboard.
"You're a liar!"
They began to fight, and the other men joined in. Some of them wanted to stop the fight, but others tried to take the jewels from the deck. The captain quickly took the jewels before anyone else could. The men didn't stop fighting with each other until they heard the man in the crow's nest shout 'Ship!' They looked and saw the black flag above the sails of a ship coming towards them, but they didn't know it was Captain Pike. Captain Scott looked through his telescope, then called to the men:
"Enemy ship approaching! Open the cannons! Prepare to fight!"
The men were running to different parts of the ship when Captain Pike's ship fired a cannon. Aloud 'boom!' was heard, but the cannon ball missed and landed in the water, making a big splash next to the Queen Anne. Another cannon was fired. This one hit one of the Queen Anne's sails. The Queen Anne fired back, and the battle began. It was a fierce battle. The sails on both ships had holes in them and were on fire and there was black smoke in the air. When the ships were close enough, the pirates used ropes to jump onto the Queen Anne.
All the men were fighting with swords, so there was no one to watch the treasure. Captain Pike jumped on board the Queen Anne. He went below with two of his men where Blackbeard's treasure was. Captain Scott saw them below and followed with his sword in his hand. Captain Pike turned to fight him.
"I know you've got that treasure and I'm not leaving without it."
"You will die before you touch a piece of what's behind that door!"
Blackbeard was watching all of this. He followed Captain Pike downstairs, and when he had the chance, he hit him over the head with a piece of wood.
Captain Pike was surprised. He didn't know what happened.
"Quick, open that door. Now!"
Pike's men broke the door open and Captain Pike opened both chests. He left the Queen's gold pieces and put his hands on the shining jewels of Blackbeard's treasure.
"Look at these beauties! I've never seen such colours. Blue diamonds, pearls, red rubies!"
Blackbeard closed the top down on Captain Pike's hands and he screamed in pain.
"Good God! Open it! Open it!"
His men helped open the chest, but both Pike's hands were badly hurt.
"Take that one with us. We'll come back for the other later."
Captain Pike was looking at his injured hands. His men were very surprised at what happened. So, they picked up the wrong chest. It was the chest with the Queen's gold in it. Blackbeard was smiling at Captain Pike, knowing that no one would get his gold. He didn't know himself that they were leaving his treasure behind. So, he sat on the chest that the men took back to the pirate ship.
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