The Argosy — page 248: what you’re looking at

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

232 Overhauled by a Pirate. hold water. Notacutlass nor a pike was there on board, let alone firearms ; and our crew were the most innocent set you can imagine— quiet, easy-going Westland Scotchmen, mostly married men, with broad, good-natured, simple faces, like the villagers in a pantomime. The very sight of them would have been enough to re-assure any pirate on earth, and the only thing left to be done was to try stratagem. So the captain gave orders to mg up as many dummies as possible, with spars and old jackets, to look as if we mustered pretty strong—and every one began to conceal their valuables—I put my gold watch (this very one) among the grounds of the coffee-pot, the surgeon slipped his case of instruments under a loose plank, and our skipper hid the chronometer. Meanwhile the pirate (for there could be no mistake about her now) was coming down upon us like a vulture ; she ran across our. bows (to do her justice she was beautifully handled), came about like a flash, and lay-to within easy hail, so that we could see every face on board of her. And a rare sight they were! There seemed to be no discipline among them— neither captain nor officers ; all were dressed alike, in coarse guernsey frocks, taken, no doubt, from some ship which they had plundered. There were men of all nations. Sallow Spaniards and red-faced Eng- lishmen ; lean, olive-coloured Portuguese and brawny, yellow-haired Germans; gaunt, hatchet-faced Yankees, and vicious-looking Mulat- toes; but upon each and all was that nameless stamp which marks the man whom some great crime has cut off from his fellows—the kind of look that I (and you too, I dare say) have seen many a time among the worst class of convicts. “Tt is always difficult for a man to tell before-hand how he will feel when suddenly brought face to face with a deadly peril. I have seen a man whose life was hanging by a hair, watch curiously the movements of a spider on his window. I, myself, in the crisis of the deadliest scrape I ever was in, found leisure to note the peculiar shape of a cloud in the sky. I remember, as if it were yesterday, that my first feeling at sight of the pirates was one of rage—a kind of angry disgust at the idea of such mean-looking rascals daring to attack us at all. But I had little time to think of it, for just as they ran alongside of us, our skipper, to my astonishment, coolly hailed them. ‘Ship ahoy! What’s your name ?’ | ‘There was a pause before they answered—giving some Spanish name, which I forget. Our skipper left them no time to think about it, but went on: ‘What’s your cargo? (It’s guid to hae first word, Maister K—.’) s« ¢ Figh,’ ‘“¢ That’s a lee, and a big one, sir,’ said the captain to me ina whisper; ‘nae fishing vessel wad hae less than fowre boats, and yon craft has but two. Whaur do ye come frae P’ he added aloud. ‘¢¢ From the Falkland Isles.’ ECORNICLOOO SS (C(O)