"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