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Updated: July 6, 2025
Perhaps they hadn't seen us go overboard; and even if they had, the frigate being undone by its rudder couldn't return to leeward after us. So we could count only on its longboats. Conseil had coolly reasoned out this hypothesis and laid his plans accordingly. An amazing character, this boy; in midocean, this stoic lad seemed right at home!
The Holland ships proceeded to anchor outside the harbour, and, lowering their longboats, sent ashore forty men, all armed with pistols. But the Spaniards had been on the alert, and having warped their vessel to a safer position above the bridge, they placed their two guns on the deck, and every man prepared himself to defend the ship.
Land," the commander asked, "do you still advise putting my longboats to sea?" "No, sir," Ned Land replied, "because that beast won't be caught against its will." "Then what should we do?" "Stoke up more steam, sir, if you can. As for me, with your permission I'll go perch on the bobstays under the bowsprit, and if we can get within a harpoon length, I'll harpoon the brute."
He reported that a party of pirates in longboats had come down river during the evening to reconnoitre, but had beat a retreat as soon as they had seen the Henry's guns. It was decided about half the crew of the Queen should be added to the force of men on the two sloops, while the big vessel herself was forced to be content with standing guard off the entrance.
Ever and anon, as the mood takes them, the gunners on Czerny's yacht let fly at us with their erring shells; but they smite the air or hurt the water, or drop the bounding fire on the shimmering spread of sand beyond us. Perhaps it is that this employment occupies the minds of the longboats' crews and keeps them from reckoning with the master who has befooled them.
It was five miles from us and formed no more than a dark, barely perceptible mass. But as for longboats, not a one in sight! I tried to call out. What was the use at such a distance! My swollen lips wouldn't let a single sound through. Conseil could still articulate a few words, and I heard him repeat at intervals: "Help! Help!" Ceasing all movement for an instant, we listened.
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.
And what with the laugh and the jest, and the new confidence which the sight of those poor driven devils put into us, we came all together to the sea's edge, and, scarcely cocking a rifle at them, we hailed the longboats and got their story. "Ahoy, there! And what port d'you think you're making for?" cries Peter Bligh, in a voice that might have split the waters.
Augustine to the island of Trinidad, and from Panama to the coasts of Peru. About the middle of the seventeenth century certain French adventurers set out from the fortified island of St. Christopher in longboats and hoys, directing their course to the westward, there to discover new islands.
Like pirates' junks, slipping from a sheltered creek, the devils in the longboats espied us in the moonlight and began to row towards us and to hail us with those wild shouts which yesterday we had heard even in the House Under the Sea. Yet, I witness, they did not affright us.
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