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(Joe) wrote in message . com...

BTW this is a true story. Anyone know who told it, and when?

And what a Felucca look like? They spray was a converted oyster boat I
read somewere.

Joe

"Monday, August 25, the Spray sailed from Gibraltar?A tug belonging to
her Majesty towed the sloop into the steady breeze clear of the mount,
where her sails caught a violent wind, which carried her once more to
the Atlantic, where it rose rapidly to a furious gale. My plan was, in
going down this coast, to haul offshore, well clear of the land, which
hereabouts is the home of pirates; but I had hardly accomplished this
when I perceived a felucca making out of the nearest port, and finally
following in the wake of the Spray ?here I was, after all, evidently
in the midst of pirates and thieves! I changed my course; the felucca
did the same, both vessels sailing very fast, but the distance growing
less and less between us. The Spray was doing nobly; she was even more
than at her best, but, in spite of all I could do, she would broach
now and then. She was carrying too much sail for safety. I must reef
or be dismasted and lose all, pirate or no pirate. I must reef, even
if I had to grapple with him for my life.

I was not long in reefing the mainsail and sweating it up - probably
not more than fifteen minutes; but the felucca had in the meantime so,
shortened the distance between us that I now saw the tuft of hair on
the heads of the crew, - by which, it is said, Mohammed will pull the
villains up into heaven, - and they were coming on like the wind. From
what I could clearly make out now, I felt them to be the sons of
generations of pirates, and I saw by their movements that they were
now preparing to strike a blow. The exultation on their faces,
however, was changed in an instant to a look of fear and rage. Their
craft, with too much sail on, broached to on the crest of a great
wave. This one great sea changed the aspect of affairs suddenly as the
flash of a gun. Three minutes later the same wave overtook the Spray
and shook her in every timber. At the same moment the sheet-strop
parted, and away went the main-boom, broken short at the rigging.

Impulsively I sprang to the jib-halyards and down-haul, and instantly
downed the jib. The head-sail being off, and the helm put hard down,
the sloop came in the wind with a bound. While shivering there, but a
moment though it was, I got the mainsail down and secured inboard,
broken boom and all?The mainsail being secured, I hoisted away the
jib, and, without looking round, stepped quickly to the cabin and
snatched down my loaded rifle and cartridges at hand; for I made
mental calculations that the pirate would by this time have recovered
his course and be close aboard, and that when I saw him it would be
better for me to be looking at him along the barrel of a gun. The
piece was at my shoulder when I peered into the mist, but there was no
pirate within a mile. The wave and squall that carried away my boom
dismasted the felucca outright. I perceived his thieving crew, some
dozen or more of them, struggling to recover their rigging from the
sea. Allah blacken their faces!"

Just enjoyed that chapter so much I had to share it!

Joe