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Under circumstances so discouraging, the attorney, who began to be alarmed for his boat, which was flying along on the water, towed by the ship, prepared to take his leave; for he was fully aware that he had no power to compel the other to heave-to his ship, to enable him to get out of her. Luckily the water was still tolerably smooth, and with fear and trembling, Mr.
"We set her on fire in the night," said Captain Semmes, "and shortly after we had done so, we heard a couple of guns. We thought it was another Yankee, and we up steam and fired a gun for her to heave-to. On coming alongside her, we found she was Her Majesty's frigate Dido.
The atmosphere, however, was too dense to enable him to see the land at any distance. Still he could not venture to heave-to; his only hope of keeping the boats afloat was to run on, and he trusted that day light would return before they could reach the neighbourhood of the reefs. It was too dark to see the hands of his watch, even when held up so that the light from the mountain could fall on it.
Standing in-shore, he would suddenly make all sail away, either to the northward or southward, as if in chase of some vessel, and then when the ship could no longer be seen from the land he would heave-to and send the boats in-shore, when very frequently they would pounce upon slave-vessels totally unsuspicious of their presence.
But I must heave-to a bit and overhaul my reckoning, for I almost forget. Did ever any of you see a port-go-chaire?” “We never heard of such a port,” said some of his auditors; “you’re humbugging us.” “I have been to America, the West and East Ingees, but I never heard of such a port,” said another. “Why, you lubbers,” said the story-teller, “if you go to France, you’ll see thousands of them.
This lasted but for a moment, however, and, as soon as I got at work, the feeling gave me no trouble. We were an hour getting the ship ready, and, by that time, the brig was within half a mile, luffing fairly up on our lee-quarter. As we had shortened sail, the privateer manifested no intention of throwing a shot to make us heave-to. She seemed disposed to extend courtesy for courtesy.
"Captain Ahab mistakes; it is I. The oil in the hold is leaking, sir. We must up Burtons and break out." "Up Burtons and break out? Now that we are nearing Japan; heave-to here for a week to tinker a parcel of old hoops?" "Either do that, sir, or waste in one day more oil than we may make good in a year. What we come twenty thousand miles to get is worth saving, sir."
"That, I take it, is a polite request to us to heave-to and haul down our colours," remarked Captain Harrison to the first lieutenant, with a smile. "Well, we may as well return the compliment, Mr Dawson. Try a shot at each of them with the stern-chasers.
The temporary lull in the gale, of which we had taken advantage to heave-to the schooner, lasted only just long enough to enable us to accomplish that manoeuvre.
If we could keep her in sight long enough there was just a possibility that some one or another of her crew, working aloft, might cast a glance astern and catch sight of our tiny sail, when he would at once recognise it as that of a boat, and report it; when, if the skipper happened to be a humane man, he would assuredly heave-to and wait for us to close.
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