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Updated: May 16, 2025
We thus fought from noon till half past six, though at such distance that our shot would hardly reach him, while his flew over us. Growing dusk, both ceased firing, none of our men being either killed or wounded, and only two through carelessness had their hands and faces scorched. We lay-to all night, expecting in the morning to renew the fight; but he had made sail from us in the night.
This has obliged me to lay-to for these two days past, in order to put them into condition to be brought into port, as well as our own, which have suffered greatly." Ships large in tonnage were necessarily also ships large in scantling, heavy ribbed, thick-planked, in order to bear their artillery; hence also with sides not easy to be pierced by the weak ordnance of that time.
"We couldn't have tried to beat against it; and, heavily- laden as we are, it would have been madness to have tried to lay-to!" "You're right," said Mr Meldrum, "and it was equally fortunate that the gale carried us so far and no further! Another twelve hours of it and we would have been high and dry ashore on the Spanish coast."
They had suffered dreadfully during the chase, with the fright and heat, and from having the hatches battened down. Our first business was to shorten sail, which we made the Spaniards and Portuguese who formed the crew go aloft to do; and we then edged the schooner down to where the brig was, and lay-to close to her.
The mate of the vessel called out at once, "Send them off in the shore-boat; we'll lay-to." No time was to be lost, for if the Smeaton should get involved in the fog it might be very difficult to find her; so Ruby at once ran for the letters, and, hailing the shore-boat which lay quite close at hand, jumped into it and pushed off.
The signalman, on the look-out with his glass, reported the gig coming off with the captain; and in obedience to the orders he had received, the first-lieutenant immediately hove up, and the anchor having been "catted and fished," the frigate lay-to in the Sound.
"Ay, that's a request for us to lay-to," said the captain bitterly, "but we won't. Keep her away a point." "Ay, ay, sir," sung out the man at the wheel. A second and a third shot were fired, but passed unheeded, and the captain, fully expecting that the next would be fired into them, ordered the men below. "We can't afford to lose a man, Mr. Thompson; send them all down."
She lay-to under the land still, and with only a few hands on deck, while the Agra edged away from her and entered the Straits between Long Island and Point Leat, leaving the schooner about two miles and a half distant to the N.W. Ah! The stranger's deck swarms black with men.
In this dilemma they lay-to for a short time, after getting away to a sufficient distance from the dangerous rock, and consulted what was to be done. Some advised one course, and some another, but it was finally suggested that one of the English prisoners should be brought up and commanded to steer out to sea.
Close by the islet a schooner yacht lay-to, and a well-manned boat was pulling vigorously for the shore. "The Red Earl!" I cried. "The Red Earl twelve hours too late!" "Feel in your pocket, Frank. Are you armed?" asked Northmour. I obeyed him, and I think I must have become deadly pale. My revolver had been taken from me. "You see I have you in my power," he continued.
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