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Updated: June 27, 2025
As the broad mainsail of the ship collapsed and shrivelled into massive festoons to the hauling of the crew upon the clew-garnets, buntlines, and leech-lines, preparatory to backing the maintopsail, we too shortened sail in readiness to heave-to at the same moment as the prize; and five minutes later I found myself, with my sword drawn and a dozen stout fellows, armed to the teeth, at my heels, standing upon the quarter-deck of the stranger, with a little crowd of well-dressed men evidently Spaniards curiously regarding me and my following by the light of a couple of lanterns that someone had placed on the capstan- head.
He knew what was his duty in such a case, though; and that was to run for Portsmouth with the papers, fighting only on the defensive; and this, to the great disappointment of his men, he kept to. The schooner commenced the aggressive by sending a shot in front of the cutter's bows, as an order to heave-to, but the cutter kept on, and the next shot went through her mainsail.
Nearing the sandy beach we heave-to for soundings, but finding none, the ship stands off, while Phineas and I, with Tom Tar and our boat's crew, well armed, pull in with the intention of landing.
"No doubt about it, sir," was the answer; and in a lower voice, "And now, my wigs, won't the youngsters catch it!" When the sloop of war drew near, she fired a gun as a signal to the Greek vessel to heave-to. As the midshipmen knew what that meant, they at once obeyed, and in a short time a boat was seen pulling towards them; a lieutenant and a midshipman were in her.
She was a brig under English colours. On the stranger being come up with, a gun was fired across her bows; and as she did not heave-to, a shot was sent crashing into her hull. She then hauled down her colours. The boats were manned and shoved off to her. They quickly returned, laden almost to the water's edge. The ship stood on again nearer to her, when the boats towed her alongside.
But it was of no use. The gun-runners only gained a very few minutes' grace. The Angamos was much too fast a ship for them; and a few minutes later she ranged up on the starboard side of the sternmost steamer, while Jim, seizing a speaking-trumpet, hailed at the top of his voice: "What ship is that? Heave-to! I wish to speak to you!"
The brig astern now fired a gun as a signal for us to heave-to, but the shot never came near us, and the only notice that we took of it was to hoist our colours. This caused the brig to give chase in earnest, shaking out another reef in her topsails, and firing again.
But at this moment the signal to heave-to was seen flying at the masthead of the Kent. Before the vessels had anchored one of the grabs left the main fleet and ran into the harbor. It bore a message from Admiral Watson to Tulaji Angria, summoning him to surrender.
Scarcely had we made good forty or fifty miles to the westward, than the wind increasing we had again to heave-to under a close-reefed fore-topsail. Here we lay day after day, drifting rapidly back from the point it had taken us so long to gain. Each day, too, saw our bulwarks more and more shattered by the furious seas constantly breaking on board.
It was a most interesting sight to the writer for a hundred or more men to get hold of a large rope and begin to heave-to. Soon the boat would begin to move slowly. As a rule people in Egypt are very poor. The plague of flies has not yet ceased in Egypt. Children are dirty and often diseased and the streets of the old portion of the city of Cairo literally swarm with them.
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