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Updated: May 9, 2025
The wind still freshening, I settled the throat of the mainsail to ease the sloop's helm, for I could hardly hold her before it with the whole mainsail set. A schooner ahead of me lowered all sail and ran into port under bare poles, the wind being fair.
"Mel-lin-ger a-hoy!" The sloop was now on its outward tack; but from it came a clear, answering hail: "Good-bye, Billy . . . go-ing home bye!" The Andador was the sloop's destination. No doubt some passenger with a sailing permit from some up-the-coast point had come down in this sloop to catch the regular fruit steamer on its return trip.
Then I got a view of the sloop's decks, for the first time. A respectable-looking, tall, slender, middle-aged man, with a bright dark eye, was on the quarter-deck, and I bowed to him, inferring at once that he was one of the medical gentlemen to whom I had sent the message. In effect, it was Post, the second named on my list, the first not being able to come.
By the time the sloop's deck was perpendicular, we had unbent the boom- lift from below, made it fast to the wharf, and, with the other end fast nearly to the mast-head, heaved it taut with block and tackle. The lift was of steel wire. We were confident that it could stand the strain, but we doubted the holding-power of the stays that held the mast.
The fine portmanteau, filled with Anne's new clothing and with her gifts for the Province Town friends, was placed carefully in the little cabin. Captain Starkweather had already hoisted the sloop's mainsail, and gave Anne a warm welcome as her father helped her on board. "Good-bye, good-bye, dear Rose," Anne called back.
I stepped over the quarter rail, grasped the topmast stay of the sloop, swung myself on the jibboom, and in the space of a few seconds after the captain had concluded his maledictions I was standing on the sloop's forecastle, alongside of Bohun. As soon as I reached the deck of the sloop, Bohun eagerly grasped me by the hand.
Ay, and, they say, you came within an eighth of an inch of sending him to hell." "I knew not where I struck; 'twas a death struggle in the dark. I thought him dead when I left him, and ran to warn the others. But for this I was too late. The moment I set foot on the sloop's deck it was to close in battle with the big negro." "Cochose? He saw you then?" "No, only as a shape.
I stowed the tallow from the deck to the hold, arranged my cabin in better order, and took in a good supply of wood and water. I also mended the sloop's sails and rigging, and fitted a jigger, which changed the rig to a yawl, though I called the boat a sloop just the same, the jigger being merely a temporary affair.
The Mermaid observing the sloop with Low himself to be the larger of the two, crowded all sail, and continued gaining still more, indeed until her shot flew over; but one of the sloop's crew shewed Low a shoal, which he could pass, and in the pursuit the man-of-war grounded. Thus the pirates escaped hanging on this occasion.
"It's Bob's pistol. And there's only one way it could have gotten where it was. He must have thrown it from the sloop's deck as they went past, thinking we'd find it. See here! They can't be gone more than a few hours, for there's not a bit of rust on the iron parts. Maybe we could catch them, Job, if we hurry!" Job turned to his men and called, "What say you, lads shall we give them a chase?"
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