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Updated: June 26, 2025
"Aye, aye," responded a voice in English; and the natives, as the rope was thrown to them, made fast the canoes and clambered up the sides, the two girls alone remaining in the first canoe, and looking with lustrous, wondering eyes at the crowd of strange faces that looked down at them from the barque's decks.
Another second or two, and the ships gently jarred together, the brig's quarter dropping alongside the barque at the same moment. "Enfans, allons-nous-en!" exclaimed the voice of the stranger forward, followed by the sound of a leap on to the barque's deck, and a scramble among the spars which littered it there.
"I scarcely know," answered I. "If the breeze has freshened at all within the last few minutes, it might be done; not otherwise; because in the latter event they could lower the barque's boats and overhaul us in a very few minutes." "At all events it is quite worth while to ascertain whether there is any chance of success.
I guessed there would be nothing worth finding in the barque's forecastle, and not doubting that there was a lazarette in which would be stored such ship provisions as the crew had left behind them, I returned to the cabin, looked for the lazarette hatch, and found it under the table.
By this time, however, we had drifted within range of the barque's guns, and she had opened a rather desultory but well-directed fire upon us whenever any of her guns could be brought to bear, the result of which was that one of our men had already been hurt by a splinter, while the schooner's rigging was beginning to be a good deal cut up.
Foot by foot the brig for such she was crept up to the Aurora, until her bows were in a line with the barque's stern and not more than twenty feet distant. George stood by the main-rigging, watching her, cutlass in hand, calm and determined, his plans already formed for action in the event of his suspicions proving correct.
Alas! a light cat's-paw skimmed across the ocean the topgallant-sails of the barque blew out; but before they had any influence in impelling her through the water, they again drooped as before. Another cat's-paw came stronger than the first, and rippled the whole surrounding surface. Oh with what agony we saw the topsails bulge out, and the barque's head turn from us!
Well, the gun-boat that went to look for the pirates sighted one o' the junks out in the Indian Ocean after a long search and captured her, but not a single one o' the barque's crew was to be found in her, and it was supposed they had been all murdered and thrown overboard wi' shots tied to their feet to sink them.
Gun after gun was now rapidly fired by the pirates, but they were not yet within range, though it was only too evident that they would be before very long, and I greatly feared that the barque's chances of escape were remarkably small.
She wore a black gown, of course, but not a widow's cap: and, though in fact a widow of twenty-five, had very much more the appearance of a maid of nineteen as she looked down over the barque's side. Her lips were parted as if to smile at the first provocation. On either side of her temples a short brown curl had rebelled and was kissing her cheek.
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