All the more surprising that van Hoek orders a tack, when it isn't really necessary. Minerva comes about and sails directly toward the meandering sloop. Several minutes later, Minerva bucks once as she rams the sloop amidships, then shudders as her keel drives the wreckage under the sea. Those burly forecastlemen go out with cutlasses and hatchets to cut shreds of the sloop's rigging away from the bowsprit, where it has become fouled. Van Hoek, strolling on the poop deck, aims a pistol over the rail and, in a sudden lily of smoke, speeds a drowning pirate to Hell.