A Little Maid of Massachusetts Colony

by Alice Turner Curtis

CHAPTER XVIII

A GREAT ADVENTURE

Anne’s first impulse was to open the cabin door, but she had learned one lesson by her runaway journey—to obey and wait. It was very hard for the little girl to keep quiet, for she could hear her father’s voice, and that of Captain Starkweather, and loud commands in strange voices, and the sloop seemed to be moving this way and that as if it had lost its pilot.

“We are captured by that English boat; I know we are,” Anne whispered to herself.

And that was really what had happened. The English schooner had sent a shot through Captain Starkweather’s fine new mainsail, followed by a command to lay to, and before Mr. Nelson had had time to fasten the door of the cabin, the schooner was abreast of the sloop and in a few moments the Province Town boat was taken in tow by the English schooner, and Mr. Nelson and Captain Starkweather found themselves prisoners.

“Leave ’em on deck, but make sure they can’t move hands or feet,” Anne heard a rough voice command, and there was the sound of scuffling feet, and gradually the noise ceased; and all that Anne could hear was a faint murmur of voices, and the ripple of the water against the side of the boat. These sounds gradually ceased, and the frightened child realized that the wind had died away, and that the boats were becalmed. She peered out of the little cabin window and saw that the English boat was very near. The tide sent the sloop close to the schooner, and now Anne could hear voices very plainly.

“Pull in that tow line, and make fast to the sloop,” she heard the same gruff voice command, and in a few moments the sloop lay beside the schooner.

“I could get on board just as easy,” Anne thought, and wondered if her father would tell the English that his little daughter was in the sloop’s cabin.

Poor John Nelson, lying on the schooner’s deck, tied hand and foot, feared every moment that his conquerors would discover that there was another passenger on board the boat. “They would not harm my little maid,” he assured himself, “but there is food and water in the sloop’s cabin, and Anne is best off there.”