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Updated: May 22, 2025
There was a schooner in the offing with the British flag flying at her gaff-end, and, as luck would have it, I'd just managed to hit the spot where a boat's crew belonging to her were ashore, filling up their fresh water.
I was not aware it could be seen from deck?" "Nor can it, sir; but, by going up half-a-dozen ratlins we get a look at it. Captain Drinkwater bowses up his lights to the gaff-end, and I can see him always ten minutes sooner than any other ship in the fleet, under the same circumstances." "Drinkwater is a careful officer; do the bearings of his light alter enough to tell the course he is steering?"
One on 'em has V-i-r- g-i-n-i-a, N-e-w O-r-l-e-a-n-s cut cut, mind you and painted on her starn, and she flies that galorious flag that's floatin' up thar," pointing to the American ensign fluttering from the gaff-end "while t'other has the words P-r-e-c-i-o-s-a, H-a-v-a-n-a cut and painted on hern, and she flies a yaller flag with two red bars.
The French gun-brig was by this time crossing our bows, distant about half a mile; her reply was accordingly made from her gaff-end, the fore- topgallant-sail and royal being at the same time sheeted-home and mast- headed. It was to the following effect: "Yes. Brig in question sailed from Congo yesterday, six hours before our arrival, with three hundred slaves on board."
Within the next half-hour the wind had increased so greatly in strength that I began to think there really might be something in Saunders's theory after all, and I was inwardly debating whether I should haul the fore-sheet to windward and heave the schooner to, or whether it would be better to up helm and run before it until the weather should moderate a bit, when a third corposant suddenly appeared, this time on the boom-foresail gaff-end.
In another minute or so she was within biscuit-toss of us, so close that we could hear the hissing shear of her sharp stem through the water, and the moan of the wind in the hollows of her canvas, when up jumps a fellow upon her rail and hailed us in what I took to be Spanish, it wasn't French, I know, because I can speak a little of that lingo, at the same time pointing to his gaff-end, up to which another ruffian at once began to hoist a black flag.
But he was mistaken for once, if by the term fun he meant a frigate action; for old Clewline, the skipper of the "Amethyst," was too seasoned a hand to do anything rashly. He ran down, his ship as dark as the grave, until he had attained a position about two miles dead to windward of our pursuer, when he hauled up and showed the private signal at his gaff-end.
And at the same instant a great black flag went soaring aloft to her gaff-end! "So," said I to Simpson, who was standing close beside me, "that clears the ground and enables us to know just where we are. With that black rag staring us in the face there is no possibility of making a mistake. Return his fire, lads, as your guns come to bear, and be careful not to throw a single shot away.
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