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The two captains nodded, and he told them this. Ten days previously, when close in to barren and isolated Sala-y-Gomez, the POCAHONTAS had spoken the Chilian corvette O'HIGGINS, bound from Easter Island to Valparaiso.
"Commander Flinders, formerly captain of the corvette Investigator, sent by the English Government for work of discovery in the Pacific Ocean, has altered absolutely the mission for which he had obtained from the French Government the passport signed by the Minister for Marine.
The corvette was now abreast of the Chilian ship, and as she drew level she let fly her whole broadside, consisting of one 100- pounder, one 70-pounder, and six 40-pounders, at the devoted gunboat. The effect was as though a hurricane of fire and steel had broken loose aboard the Covadonga.
A word must be added concerning an acquaintance-Monsieur Gallois. Just as the Black Prince's masts went, I saw him, a long way to windward, stretching in towards the coast, and carrying sail as hard as his lugger would bear. The corvette was still close at his heels; and Marble soon after drew my attention towards him, to observe the smoke that was rising above the sloop-of-war.
They found the life on board the corvette very different to that of the frigate. Their hands were constantly in the tar-bucket and paint-pot. They were for ever employed in knotting and splicing, and in rigging and unrigging a model ship, which had been made on purpose to instruct them.
As if by magic, the wide cloud of canvas which had lately towered above the deck of the corvette seemed dissolved in air. The race is not always to the swift, nor does Fortune always favour the best cause.
They sighted mail-boats moving on their appointed routes; passed well-found home ships with rusty iron sides anchored in the shallow sea waiting for a change of weather or the turn of the tide; an English gunboat, white and trim, with two slim masts, crossed their bows one day in the distance; and on another occasion a Dutch corvette, black and heavily sparred, loomed up on their quarter, steaming dead slow in the mist.
Captain Bland, hoping that he might possibly obtain some information about the "Lady Alice" on board the corvette at once borrowed a boat and invited me to accompany him to visit her. He was remarkably silent as we pulled for the ship, and thus my mind had time to recur to the gloomy thoughts which had before pained me so much.
The cruiser, a large full-rigged corvette, was coming up hand over hand, carrying a strong breeze, and the days of the 'D n' seemed numbered, when C tried a ruse worthy of any of the heroes of naval history. The wind, as I said, was very fresh, with a good deal of sea running. On came the cruiser till the 'D n' was almost under her bows, and shortened sail in fine style.
Two ships, the Peruvian corvette America, and the United States "double-ender" Wateree, were carried nearly half a mile to the north of Arica beyond the railroad which runs to Tacna, and there left stranded high and dry. This enormous wave was considered by the English vice-consul at Arica to have been fully fifty feet in height.
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