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Updated: May 25, 2025
On the contrary, he kept the ship close to the wind, so that by again going about he might prevent the stranger from passing him. His glass had never been off her. Suddenly he exclaimed, "Hurrah! she's French. I caught sight of her flag as she luffed up! Hands about ship! We'll fight her, Captain Saltwell?" he added, turning to his former commander.
Then, passing under the stern of our quarry we luffed up into the wind, shot alongside the craft, hove our grappling-irons into her rigging, and, whilst our boarders were still busy driving her astonished crew below, cut her cable and dragged her a quarter of a mile to sea before the people in the battery woke up and fully realised what we were about.
She luffed to deaden her way, that I might swim close, and as we approached each other I observed a crowd of heads forward looking at me, and several men aft, all staring intently. A man scrambled on to the rail, and with an arm clasping a backstay hailed me: "Schooner ahoy!" he bawled, with a strong nasal twang in his cry. "What ship's that?" "The Boca del Dragon," I shouted back.
About the middle of the first watch, a man on the forecastle sang out, in a tone which showed that there was not a moment to be lost, ``Hard up the helm! and a great ship loomed up out of the fog, coming directly down upon us. She luffed at the same moment, and we just passed each other, our spanker boom grazing over her quarter.
The New Yorker labored diligently for some time, and I luffed up the boat in order to lessen his labors; but before he got the fish near enough to enable us to see what he was, the patent gear snapped, and away went the fish. I had provided Mr. Tiffany with a line from Lake Superior, and he had a fish on before the Colonel had finished his labors with the first one.
In the meantime, the man at the wheel had luffed until the weather leeches were flat and the ship scarcely moving. And at this moment, that the skipper might know their meaning, a couple of hands jumped aft and let go the weather main-braces. I took care to keep my eyes on Coxon and the mate, fully prepared for any attack that one or both might make on me.
"She'm sinkin', she'm goin' un'er," the negro yelled. "Be ready, every one, to jump the moment I lay alongside," Houghton shouted. Then he luffed sharply to the wind, dropped his sail; his light craft lost headway, and glided alongside of the sinking boat. "Now jump, all," he cried.
By means of this simple contrivance, which had been rigged before starting on her cruise, the Catamaran could be steered to any point of the compass, and kept either before the wind, or luffed up as close to it as she was capable of sailing.
At length the boat shot through the last passage of the reef, and issued into open water. Mulford knew that he must come out half a mile at least to leeward of his object, and, without even raising his head, he flattened in the sheet, put his helm down, and luffed close to the wind. Then, and then only, did he venture to look around him.
The French frigate, however, which had immediately luffed up, though too late to avoid being raked, returned the fire with her other broadside. The two frigates ran on together to the eastward, exchanging broadsides as fast as the guns could be run in and loaded. "I wonder when she's going to give in?" said Nat to Owen as they returned from below with a fresh supply of powder.
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