“‘Sail ho!’
“‘Where away?’ cried the midshipman.
“‘Rounding the point yonder, sir.’
“The midshipman scrambled forward, and we were all alert enough now. She wasn’t a dhow, and no one could make anything of her at first, but we soon made her out to be one of those low freeboard one-masted craft that the Portuguese had in those days as coasters, and which they often used as slavers or even pirates.
“‘She seems very low in the water,’ said the midshipman, ‘Is she too big to fight, Mr Roberts?’
“‘A deal too big,’ I replied, ‘We’d better let her alone, I think.’
“We got to windward of her anyhow, so we could have a peep on board. We loaded with ball cartridge, and stood by for whatever might happen.
“The strange craft stood right on her course, and never seemed to heed us, though the lowering glance her captain gave us showed he bore us no good will. She was crowded with a rascally crew of Portuguese and negroes, and many bore ghastly wounds, that showed she had been in a recent fray; and it afterwards turned out that she had had a brush with the Niobe, but escaped.
“On her deck were four or five biggish guns. Discretion in this case was evidently then the better part of valour, for she could easily have blown us out of the water, but she seemed too disheartened for anything else but flight.
“I think we were pleased also to escape an encounter that would certainly have ended in disaster.