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In 1812, when her husband had been elected Governor of his state, her only child a sturdy boy of eleven died, and Theodosia's health was shattered by her sorrow. In the same year Burr returned from a sojourn in Europe, and his loving daughter embarked from Charleston on a schooner, the Patriot, to meet her father in New York.
The schooner had grounded upon the southern horn of the bay and lay easily on a spit of sand. They could not examine the nature of the leak until low water the next morning. "Well, here we are," said Moran, her thumbs in her belt. "What next? We may be here for two days, we MAY be here for two years. It all depends upon how bad a hole she has.
Of course, when the schooner canted over, the boom had swung outboard, and the cap of it and a foot or two of sail hung even under water. I thought this made it still more dangerous, yet the strain was so heavy that I half feared to meddle. At last I got my knife and cut the halyards.
I'll get the skipper on board the other schooner. Then we'll have the crew down in our forecastle." "And leave me to navigate this one, sir? No, that won't do, sir. What isn't safe for me, isn't safe for you." "No, I felt that. My plan's a different one. We'll have a hawser from our schooner to this one, after you've made all snug aloft, and tow her while the weather keeps fair."
As he warmed with his subject he ventured to put his hands on the same spokes, and, gradually becoming more venturesome, boldly supported her with his arm every time the schooner gave a lurch. "Thank you," said Miss Alsen, coldly extricating herself, as the male fancied another lurch was coming. "Good-night."
The weather was fine, I had a good cargo, and, well we pleasured out to Honolulu. I was riding the island horses and shipping oil when the schooner Kahemameha arrived from the coast with the news of the gold discovery in California. Every boat in the harbor was loaded to the trucks, crowded with passengers at their weight in ginseng, and laid for San Francisco.... Well, I was caught with the rest.
In the midst of all this bustle I have not had time for much thought, and it has only just occurred to me that if this schooner is really a pirate, and if Gascoyne turns out to be Durward, it follows that Bumpus is a pirate too, and ought to be dealt with accordingly."
Then, of a sudden, Le Marchant jerked a cry, and I saw what he saw the topsail of a schooner rising white in the sun above the sky-line, and to our hearts there was menace in the very look of it. We looked round at Sercq, at the cracks in the headlands, and the green slopes smiling in the sunshine, and the white tongues of the waves as they leaped up the cliffs. "Five miles!" gasped Le Marchant.
The captain was below, and one of the mates had charge of the deck; a light shone in the distance, like a red star dancing over the waves, and the men on the schooner moved about in a stealthy manner to and fro across the deck. It was a strange thing to do; why should they tread thus lightly the deck of a ship ten miles off shore, as though their footsteps might be heard?
This was the summit of his ambition, and in this new profession he had very little to learn. From a boy thief to a man pirate the way is easy enough. The logwood schooner, of course, was not provided with the cannon, cutlasses, and pistols necessary for piratical undertakings, and therefore Low found himself in the position of a young man beginning business with a very small capital.
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