Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1889-10-10

ward, and next day fell in with a French
prlyateer. The mountains on the island of
Martinique were in sight at that time. and
how Tom ans'l wished for wings TO hv
| there
The seventy-four crowded all sail in
chase of the French ship. and it could soon
be seen that she was gaining upon her
| Presently we could see that they were
| throwing overheard her guns and other
heavy articles to Tighten the vessel. They
cut adrift large boat. and apparently cot
I'D of everything they could spare.
After this 1t could be seen that She held
her own, and in fact she soon appeared to
be gaining ground. The wind however.
had became very light, and neither vessel
made much progress.
We passed close by the drifting boat.
but our commander made no attempt to
secure her, probably not wishing TO be
encountered with such a thing. In the
hurry and confusion of the moment the
Frenchmen had forgotten to stave a hole
IN her bottom, and had even left number
of oars on board Of her.
a few minutes later we entirely lost the
breeze, but the privateer still had @ light
breath of air, and Tom and were very
! glad to see her make off swapping her
fingers, as one might say at the helpless
/ old seventy-four
1t happened that we two We're often close
to each other, and as we cast sly gIances
toward the drifting boat the same thought
was in both our minds.
Tom, | whispered at last, IF the
/ breeze shouldn Z spring up again till after
dark, why couldn't we make dash for
| herr
The very thing I'm thinking of. he
answered softly. The trade wind viii be
sure to spring up soon, and that will take
us straight toward Martinique know it
is risky piece Of business, but I'm will
! to take The chances
/ We spoke to the two other men-the
two who had been impressed respectively
with him and myself-but they would not
make the venture. How should we be
able to find the boat in the darkness? they
asked and what were we t. do for pro-
/ visions and water in the event of reaching
her?
But we believe the stake to be worth the
risk, and our resolution was fixed We
were only afraid that the ship would get
breeze before dark
The boat was about three-fourths of a
mile off, and, as twilight gathered we
saw that shelanged exactly under a GER
/ tain large star which it would be easy to
distinguish from all others.
! As the evening advanced light breeze
| bagan to Till the sails till the ship gather
ed steerage way There was now not a
moment to lose; and dropping silently
under the bow, we struck ont for the boat
| have since thought that this was a pro-
| digious thingto do, there in the midst of
the Atlantic ocean, The picture we made
as we dropped from the bow of that big
| ship has often required 10 me.
More and more the wind breezed up. so
! that we were obliged to allow something
for the drift of the boat for we could not
see her She must have moved little to
one side of the star and suppose we
should miss her altogether. we thought
At length it seemed to us that we must
have swum more than mile We were
very tired and began to realize the fearful
/ position in which we had placed ourselves,
/ Could we have passed the object of our
search? The breeze increased rapidly.
and the water dashed into our faces OF
course the boat must now be drifting very
fast and probably we had not made al
lowance enough for the wind.
Throwing ourselves upon our backs, we
rested awhile to gain strength for further
effort; but such efforts must be feeble at
the best, the dash of waves confused us;
and as to the stars, we had by this time
got them sadly mixed.
Suddenly Tom Topped over upoU his
breast and uttered some blhd OF eNcIahla-
ton.
What is tip | asked. DO you see
her
No; but see something else Look!
against the slW
Sure enough, 1t was as he SAID Close
upon US rose the canvas OF square,ngger'
towering through the darkness like the
form OF q great tree. ,,
soon eIe',n uIJ't I'm To''g ~, ~ ,;J a.