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I let her go well off, until the longboat was broad on our starboard bow; then, putting the helm hard down, I brought the ship close to the wind, thus throwing her fore topsail aback, and, by the mercy of Providence, judging my distance with such nicety that the next moment the longboat, by this time full to her thwarts and utterly helpless, was scraping along under the shelter of our lee side, while the ship, suddenly arrested by her backed topsail, careened until her lee rail was level with the foam.
Wong, the steward, who was the lady's devoted slave, played a very important part. The plot was this. She had the key that would release him from irons. Wong had stolen it from the skipper's desk. When he was out of the lazaret, the situation would be managed by Mister Lynch. The ship's longboat, in the port skids, was ready for the water.
It will be seen, therefore, that, even apart from the longboat and gig of the Dolores, this ship was very well supplied with boats, only two of which the two longboats were thus far loaded.
"For some minutes it seemed as if there was to be a conflict between Almanza and his followers, but the mutineers appeared to yield to his appeals, and assisted in getting the longboat out. The captain was then lowered into the boat, and then Mrs.
The longboat, fine boat though she was, when stocked with even a meagre supply of provisions and water, would not accommodate more than twenty-five men, and I gravely doubted whether she would live ten minutes in such a sea as was then running, with half that number in her.
Over the first officer's prostrate form they sprang at the "falls" of the sternmost the longboat, a huge, bearded seaman in the lead. The captain, with fury in his eye, leaped in the way, shouting blasphemy and orders to go back, and was knocked flat with a single blow.
"We will give them the other pennant." Another flag, a red pennant, was hoisted in place of the blue. "Wishing you a pleasant voyage," said Marah. "Now luff, my sons. That longboat will be on to us." Indeed, the longboat had crept to within six hundred yards of us; it was time we were moving, though the guns were no longer firing on us from the ships.
Besides, you'd be in our way there. No, that won't do; that won't do at all. I'll be shot if I can see any way out of it but to make you up a shakedown in the longboat. She's got nothing in her except her own gear which we can clear out. The jolly-boat is turned over on top of her, making a capital roof to your house, so that you'll sleep dry and comfortable.
Perhaps it was that circumstance that saved the lives of all, for no murder or violence had been done. Nevertheless, officers, passengers and crew had been stripped of everything of value and set adrift in the boats and the ship herself had been burned. The longboat had become separated from the others during the night and had sighted Henlopen a little after sunrise.
The mornings of the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh found us with a similar breeze. We were fearfully weak, but we abided by our decision and continued to sail. But with the morning of the twenty-eighth we knew the time was come. The longboat rolled drearily on an empty, windless sea, and the stagnant, overcast sky gave no promise of any breeze.
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