Page:Daring deeds of famous pirates; true stories of the stirring adventures, bravery and resource of pirates, filibusters & buccaneers (1917).djvu/100

 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.

And then they resumed their rowing, and instead of working till they dropped for faintness, each man helped his neighbour when weariness was stealing over the oarsmen. Never did a more united ship's company put to sea. One