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Updated: June 9, 2025
"Our comrades come to our assistance." There could be little doubt that the mistico in sight was the Zoe. "But is she manned by our friends?" thought Zappa, whose suspicions were keenly alive to treachery. "If she were, would she thus venture out in the very face of an enemy?" The men, however, seemed convinced that she came as a friend, and welcomed her with every extravagant sign of joy.
December 28th, he embarked in a small fast-sailing sloop called a mistico, while the servants and baggage were stowed in another and larger vessel under the charge of Count Gamba. From Gamba's graphic account of the voyage we may take the following: "We sailed together till after ten at night; the wind favourable, a clear sky, the air fresh, but not sharp.
It struck me, as we came in, that there was a spot free from sea-weed, where the water looked deep, which should be just now on our larboard bow. Per Bacco, I see it, and will try it. If we strike, we shall fight there to better advantage than under weigh, and the mistico will be, soon up to our assistance."
"I am afraid we shall be witnesses of a dreadful scene," said Ada; "and yet I cannot withdraw my eyes from it. Oh! what will become of the poor people on board the vessel if those wretches in the mistico get near her? See! they are my countrymen, too, for there flies the red ensign of England."
The mistico, deprived of the guiding power of the helm, and without any after sail, ran off the shore before the wind, in the direction the current was likewise drifting her. She thus passed at no great distance from the Ione, which had reached her too late to prevent the catastrophe. Captain Fleetwood, and all on board, were anxiously watching her as she drew near them.
After the boats had disappeared, the pirates were retiring from the fort, when Tompion's gallant attack on the mistico called them back, and it was at this time that a spark from the lantern of a man, sent for a further supply of powder, fell among the scattered grains, and produced the conflagration I have before spoken of.
As the boat left the side of the mistico, she had, in every respect, the appearance of one belonging to a harmless fisherman just returned from his day's avocation.
"A felucca-looking craft right under the land ahead of us," was the answer to the usual questions. Saltwell himself went aloft to ascertain more clearly her character, and soon returned with the report that she was a mistico beating up for the raft. "She will be up to it, too, sir, I am afraid, long before we can reach it," he observed. "Shall we get a gun ready to fire, sir?"
The wind also, which had been very uncertain and changeable, now almost a calm, now a fresh breeze, now blowing from the eastward, now some points to the north of it, then a like number to the south, seemed suddenly to fix itself in the latter point with a considerable increase of strength, which sent the mistico flying through the water at a greater speed than ever.
At length, however, Captain Fleetwood tore himself away from Ada's side, and left her to the exclusive care of the surgeon and her maid, while he hurried on deck to endeavour to overtake the mistico before she got under the guns of his consort, who, of course, was not likely to treat her with the leniency he had undertaken to do.
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