Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1889-10-04
must have felt himself

startled. He must have felt himself
to be dealing with no ordinary man,
and the idea probably flashed upon
him that, after all, there might be
trouble. If such thought, however,
entered his mind, it was accompanied
by the assuring one that with his SUI
perior officer, and not with himself,
must remain the responsibility of the
act he was committing.
"But whatever view his Majesty's
officer may have taken of the case, to
ourselves the Captains words brought
an unspeakable relief. We knew our.
man, and felt sure that he would not
desert us. Besides, we had all previ-
ously heard that, though England
winked at such outrages, her laws did
not countenance them; and so we felt
that what Captain Eddy had said in
that direction had been no idle talk
"No sooner had we reached the Fal-
kinks deck than the order was given
to brace forward, and shrilly repeated
by the boatswain's whistle. This
whistle had for us most depressing
sound, and 1 have never heard one
since without kind of sad feeling at
my heart. It seemed, beyond all else,
to tell us where we were. Every COM
mand on board man-of-war, as you
may have heard, is first given in words
and then emphasized by the pipe.
with large number of hands in
the after-braces, the yards were swung
around till the sails were filled and the
brig gathered Roadway. All except
ourselves were for the moment busy,
but we, who had as yet no stations al
allotted to us, stood looking on.
"Our eyes were directed toward the
Rebecca, and we saw also her main
yard swing around in the same man
ner. But instead of STANDING upon
her original course, she followed
straight after the Falkirk.
"We had seen Captain EDDY himself
putting all his strength upon the main
brace, to assist his sorely diminished
crew in hauling the yard around; and
now we perceived him at the huge tack
of the mainsail-his own head and
those of his few men being in plain
view above the bulwarks, as q long
pull, and a strong pull, and pull all
together was given upon the heavy
rope.
"The Rebecca was by no means a
dull sailing ship, and she was now walk
ing right along. 1t was not to be ex-
pected, however, that she could keep
up with a brig-of-war, and of course
the Falkirk dropped her somewhat
astern, although the difference in speed
was much less than would have been
looked for.
captain Downs conferred earnestly
with his Lieutenant, and seemed to be
uneasy. At length, having run for a
dozen miles upon his first course, he
concluded to tack ship, the wind not
suffering him to stand directly for the
English Channel.
"Our topsail had scarcely done shiv-
ering as the vessel filled away upon
the new tack, when, looking toward
the Rebecca, we saw that she also was
in the very act of going about.
ave could not hear what Captain
Downs said, but that his attention was
wholly fixed upon his singular pursuer
was very evident. Both himself and
the Lieutenant gazed at her through
their glasses, and apparently made her
the subject of very animated discus
sion.
"On the following night it was al
most calm. The Rebecca, however
fell upon stronger current of air than
ourselves, and in the morning had got
ahead of us.
"The English sailors, who by this
time had gathered pretty correct idea
of what was going on, talked of the
bully row there would be, should the