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Updated: June 20, 2025
We were lucky enough to trip and recover our anchor without accident; the quarter-boat was hoisted up, and we then wore round after the felucca, which was hovering irresolutely about a mile away, apparently undecided whether to renew the attack or not. On seeing, however, that we were afloat again and after her, she bore up and stood to the eastward, close hauled on the larboard tack.
The quarter-boat, like a horrible phantom, had been haunting and pursuing her all day, begging for water when there was none. It was like the prayers one might expect to hear in hell. The men in the long-boat, gloomy and morose, weighed down with a sense of crime, tortured by thirst, and tormented by the voices imploring for water, lay on their oars when the other boat tried to approach.
The silence of discipline was supreme. A sailor was promptly ordered into the shrouds to keep run of the man, who was soon out of sight from the deck, so rough was the intervening water. The quarter-boat was lowered from the davits, and was afloat in less than three minutes after the order was issued, with six stout seamen at the oars and the first officer in the stern.
The quarter-boat was lowered down, and I proceeded to board her; but as she was large and rakish, O'Brien desired me to be careful, and if there were the least show of resistance to return. As I pulled up to her bows, they hailed me in French, and desired me to keep off, or they would fire. This was quite sufficient; and, in obedience to my orders, I returned to the brig and reported to O'Brien.
"Where are you from, pray?" "From New York, bound to Curaçoa." "Have you any fresh provisions to spare?" "Aye, aye! plenty of them!" We lowered away the quarter-boat, instantly; and the captain and four hands sprang in, and were soon dancing over the water, and alongside the brig.
"I'd just time to put the helm down, hoping to scrape clear of her, when I heard a crash and saw her bowsprit come sweeping along over our deck, tearing away the luff of the mainsail and knocking the port quarter-boat to pieces. I thought I saw some one hanging on to her bobstay, and the next moment that or something else struck me on the head and shoulders, and I thought I was going overboard.
"That will do!" exclaimed Williams, as he closed his telescope, after a long and searching examination of the place; "the spot is quite large enough to enable a couple of men to pick up a living upon it, and I see no sign of savages anywhere about. Lower away the quarter-boat and bundle those things down into her. Have you looked out all you think they will need, Ned?"
"I'll manage it, Simple, or my name is not Thompson," replied the master, jumping into the quarter-boat, conning the vessel in that exposed situation, as we received the enemy's fire. "Look out, my lads, and pour it into her now, just as you please," said I to the men.
"Aft here and get the quarter-boat hoisted up!" shouted Duckling, advancing on the poop; and seeing the man dead on the deck, he added, "Get a tarpaulin and cover him up, and let him lie on the fore-hatch." "Shall I tell the steward to serve out grog to the men who went with me?" I asked him. He stared at me contemptuously, and walked away without answering.
Her sails were gradually furled, and as she drew to her anchorage ground, a quarter-boat a was lowered from the davits, while the chain cable rang its loud report as it ran out at the hawser hole, and the ship swung gradually with the set of the current, leaving her stern towards the shore. But a few moments elapsed before Capt.
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