The Argosy, Vol. 75, No. 4 — page 191: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

SAILING WITH MORGAN. I afterward learned that he thought we were the flag-ship, and that he meant to let us get fairly under the fire of his batteries, when he would literally sink us at a broadside; but. we did not wait for that, for when we were with- in sixty yards of him, running on the wind, I motioned to the helmsman to put his helm down, and, gathering way with every yard, we Dyes upon the Spaniard. There was a crash that threw ev ery man of us prone upon the deck. The men upon our forecastle passed the word, and the two heavy splashes told me that both of our anchors had taken ground, and I immediately snapped my pistol into the train of powder that I had laid through the after bulkhead into the hold. A spurt of flame shot up forward and a yellow smoke-wreath jumped out of the foretop, where a man had fired the canvas. The Osprey immediately swung broadside on to the great galleon, and a frenzied shout of terror went up from the Spaniard. We burst into a mass of seething, crackling fame, and the smoke clouds flecked with the fierce glow of burning pitch and_ resin swirled up in a tornado of destruction. Years of service in the tropics be- neath a brazen sky, in the fierce heat of the southern sun, had dried every drop of moisture from the upper works of the Spaniard, and she burned like tinder. Not a shot did they fire, but, like frightened sheep, the men huddled aft in the quarter-galleries, and the fre- quent splashes told us that he was being deserted by his crew. By this time the other ships of the fleet had closed and bore down in line upon the other two vessels, and very hastily they cut their cables and ran in for the shelter of the land batteries and the heavy guns of the fort. Before they had got fairly under way I saw my chance, and, springing forward, I seized an ax and cut both cables and then the rope that held us 893 to the flaming ship. There was more for the Osprey to do that day. “Take to the boat, men!” I shout- “Quick! For your lives!” In an instant the boat was drawn up under the counter—we had towed her all day so that she should not be in- jured by the shot of the Spaniard and so lose to us our only means of escape —and one by one the men dropped from the deck aboard of her. Then, and not till then, did I go to the cabin and help Dolores to the deck. I cast the bight of a rope about her, beneath her arms, and lowered her to Alston, who passed her aft and made her lie down in the bottom of the boat. “Now,” I said, “ shove off for the Flying Stag!” and I, too, sprang down into the little craft. We shoved off; and even as we cleared her the wind took the Osprey and carried her clear of the Spaniard, ed. and down she went, heading for the | second vessel, which was at that mo- ment under the fire of the Black Prince, trying to make for the shore and safety. Then, indeed, did pandemonium break loose; and crowding on all sail the Spaniard, with the Osprey hooked by her fore-chains to his weather- shrouds, headed off for the entrance. Suddenly I saw them stop, and his foremast went by the board, and a mass of flame roared, crackling heavenward, from the square of his main-hatch. The two had taken ground upon a sand-bar, and a fearful sight it was as they roared and crackled away in the sunlight, fast lashed to each other in the glaring light of broad day. A fire at night, its proper time, is bad enough. By day it is positively inde- cent. The third and smallest of the Spaniards got away with a few shot between wind and water, and drifted helplessly down-wind and _ stranded upon the beach. While all this was taking place, after we left the Osprey, we pulled over to the Flying Stag and boarded her. Mor- gan was standing by the helmsman, and CORMGCOOOKS (©)