Daring Deeds of Famous Pirates: True stories of the stirring adventures, bravery and resource of pirates, filibusters & buccaneersChatterton, E. Keble (Edward Keble)
History
Daring Deeds of Famous Pirates: True stories of the stirring adventures, bravery and resource of pirates, filibusters & buccaneers
Chatterton, E. Keble (Edward Keble)
Pirates
On and still on sailed this long, lean galley, increasing her speed all
the time, till at length, by God’s mercy, she, with her long-suffering
crew, who by years of involuntary training had learnt to handle her to
perfection, were at last out of range of any Turkish cannon. In the
distance they could see their late masters coming down to the beach “like
unto a swarme of bees,” and bustling about in a futile endeavour to
get their other galleys ready for the sea. But it was of little avail.
The Christians had long been preparing for flight in the _Captain_, so
the Turks found it took an unbearable time in seeing out the oars and
masts, and cables and everything else necessary to a galley’s inventory
lying hidden away in winter quarters. They had never suspected such a
well-planned escape as this. Nothing was ready; all was confusion. And
even when the galleys were at last launched and rigged, the weather was
so boisterous, there was such a strong wind that no man cared about
taking charge of these fine-weather craft just at that time.
So the escaping galley got right away, and then, as soon as they were
a safe distance away, Foxe summoned his men to do what Nelson was to
perform less than three centuries later at almost this very spot. You
remember how, after the glorious battle of the Nile, when the British
fleet had obtained such a grand victory over the French, Nelson sent
orders through the fleet to return thanksgiving to Almighty God for the
result of the battle. All work was stopped, and men who had spent the
whole night risking death and fighting for their lives, dishevelled and
dirty with sweat and grime, now stood bareheaded and rendered their
thanks. So it was now on the galley _Captain_. Foxe “called to them all,
willing them to be thankfull unto Almighty God for their deliverie, and
most humbly to fall downe upon their knees, beseeching Him to aide them
unto their friends’ land, and not to bring them into an other daunger,
sith Hee had most mightily delivered them from so great a thraldome and
bondage.” It must have been a momentous occasion. Men who, after being
prisoners for thirty years and less, men who had just come through a
night of wild excitement, men who had fought with their arms and sweated
hard to get their galley ready for sea, men who even at the last minute
had barely escaped being blown into eternity by the Turkish cannon, now
halted in their work and made their thanksgiving, whilst most of them
hardly could realise that at length they were free men and the time of
their tribulation was at an end.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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