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Updated: May 7, 2025
"You couldn't save me from being hurt, missie, and I don't think you would manage to hurt any of the enemy, if there should prove to be one in the case, after all, which is in no way certain yet." While the colonel was speaking, Bowse again looked at the speronara. He now, to a certainty, ascertained that she had the dark mark in her foresail, and that she was full of men.
Had he known as much as does the reader, he would probably have had nothing to do with the speronara, which was suspected, but would at once have run alongside the Zodiac in his own vessel which was unknown. When he found himself, on his second visit to the Zodiac, so nearly caught in his own net, he pulled back to the Sea Hawk, vowing that he would not again be foiled.
The man at the helm put it so much to port, that the end of one of the long tapering yards of the speronara nearly got foul of the Zodiac's fore-yard. "What the deuce are you lubbers about, that you cannot keep yourself clear of your neighbours?" sung out Bowse's mate, from the main rigging. "I'll teach you better manners if I catch you at sea, that's all."
Her movements, however, were not totally unobserved, for Captain Fleetwood, who had called at the house of Colonel Gauntlett, early in the morning, in the vain hope of seeing Ada, was returning in a disconsolate mood along the ramparts, and meditating in what way his duty should direct him to proceed, when his eye fell on the speronara, hove-to directly below him, Manuel's boat just touching her side.
"You have heard tell on the Flying Dutchman, of course, Bill," said Jem Marline, casting a look to windward at the speronara, and hitching up his trousers, while he squirted a stream of tobacco-juice through the port. "On course," answered Bill Rullock, "I haven't been to sea near thirty years without, messmate." "Did you ever cast eyes on the chap, though?" asked Jem.
As he now brought his glass again to bear on the speronara, he saw that as the Zodiac was brought on a wind, she was immediately hauled close on it, so that, notwithstanding the change he had made in his course, she might still pass, if she liked, even to windward of him, unless she also chose to hug the wind as he had done. On seeing this, the spirit of the British sailor was roused within him.
Had I the will also, my oath would prevent my betraying him, and thus, signora, you will be able to account for my appearance on board the speronara, and afterwards in the Sea Hawk. Such, lady, is the outline of my unhappy history "
The admiration he had felt for her at the ball was increased when he beheld her again; but it was not so great as to make him forget that now was not the time to show it, and it was with some feeling of relief that he found himself once more in his boat, fully convinced that, even with his thirty men, it would be a work of considerable danger to attempt the capture of the Zodiac by means of the speronara.
Ada was not long permitted to enjoy this, to her, unusual scene, before her uncle again summoned her below; and this time she was obliged to obey. He, however, had given strict orders to be called should anything occur. The wind, as the night drew on, grew considerably lighter, and this gave a decided advantage to the speronara, which rapidly came up abeam.
I took one of my carpet bags for a pillow and lay down on the planks, where I succeeded in getting a little sleep between the groans of the helpless land-lubbers. We had the ponente, or west-wind, all night, but the speronara moved sluggishly, and in the morning it changed to the greco-levante, or north-east.
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