We heartily hoped that he was mistaken, but certainly she was very like the craft we had seen at Saint Salvador. She passed us as near as the heavy sea still running would allow her to do without danger to herself. A man was standing in the mizen rigging. I caught sight of his face through my telescope. I thought that I distinguished a look of satisfaction in his countenance as he gazed at us. “That’s La Roche; I know the villain!” cried O’Carroll; “I thought from what I heard that he was bound out here. He’ll work us ill, depend on that.” We now wished that the sea had continued to run as high as it had hitherto been doing, when it would have been impossible for the privateer to have boarded us. It was now, however, rapidly going down, though as yet it was too rough to allow her to attempt to run alongside. It was possible that she might pass us. No! After running on a short distance her yards were braced sharp up, and she stood back, with the evident intention of attacking our helpless craft.
Note 1. Contrivances to prevent articles falling off a table at sea.
Note 2. We never hear of the Flying Dutchman now-a-days. The fact is that he had the monopoly of sailing or going along rather in the teeth of the wind. Now steamers have cut him out, and he is fain to hide his diminished head.
Chapter Five.
A desperate Encounter.
O’Carroll’s alarm increased as he saw the privateer approaching. “We shall all have our throats cut to a certainty,” he cried out. “They will not leave one of us alive to go home to our disconsolate widows to tell them all that has happened. I know them too well, the villains! Arrah! it was an unfortunate moment that ever I was brought to tumble twice into the hands of such gentry.”
“We are not in their hands yet, and if we make a good fight of it, maybe we never shall,” exclaimed Captain Hassall. “My lads, if you’ll stand by me, I’ll hold out as long as the craft can float. We beat off this same fellow once before—let’s try if we can’t beat him off again.”