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Updated: June 12, 2025
Without any after-sail, and almost without the means of making any, it was idle to think of hauling off from the land, more especially against the heavy sea that was still rolling in from the north-west; and his present object was to make the Cape de Verdes, before reaching which he would be certain to meet the trades, and where, of course, there would be some chance of repairing damages.
Should they go, the brig, deprived of her after-sail, would be unable to weather the southern end of the reef. On and on we flew. A few minutes would decide our fate.
A strong gang was immediately set to work board on each ship to repair damages; but as the Frenchman, by reason of the loss of his after-sail, was unable to bring his ship upon a wind, he had no alternative but to run dead before it, fully exposed, meanwhile, to the raking effects of our larboard guns, which were kept playing upon him until he had passed out of range, not one of his guns during that time being able to reply.
Onwards she flew before the still-increasing gale. The seas rolled savagely up with foaming crests, as if trying to overwhelm her. To attempt to heave her to without any after-sail would now be hopeless.
Her main-masthead had been shot away, and the Dolores at least was safe; for the pirates, having lost their after-sail, would now be compelled to make a running fight of it before the wind, which would enable Christie to haul his wind and get out of danger.
Pathurst, I tell you frankly that it is criminal, it is sheer murder, to run the Elsinore with that crojack on her. You can see yourself, sir. It's an after-sail. All its tendency is to throw her stern off and her bow up to it. And if it ever happens, sir, if she ever gets away from the wheel for two seconds and broaches to . . . " "Then what?"
The line-of-battle ship again made an attempt to get up some after-sail; but the well-directed fire of the frigate, whenever she rose on the tops of the mountainous waves, which at intervals hid the hulls of both vessels from each other, drove the Frenchmen from their task of safety, and it was now evident that all command of her was lost.
I was about a mile and a half distant from the brig; she had, since the wind sprung up, driven a mile ahead of the schooner, who had contrived to get up a jury-mast during the night; but as she could not stir without reducing her after-sail, she had close-reefed her main-sail, so that she could make but little progress.
At the end of this period, however, the gale had freshened into a hurricane, and our after-sail split into ribbons, bringing us so much in the trough of the water that we shipped several prodigious seas, one immediately after the other. By this accident we lost three men overboard with the caboose, and nearly the whole of the larboard bulwarks.
Like him, they felt some such interest as one entertains for a beloved mistress in the fate of the lugger, and the words "sauve mon Feu-Follet!" were ringing in their ears. As soon as the lugger got round, she set her after-sail, and then she began to glide through the water with the usual knife-like parting of the element under her bows.
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