Page:Daring deeds of famous pirates; true stories of the stirring adventures, bravery and resource of pirates, filibusters & buccaneers (1917).djvu/116

 these ships, together with their cables. All this they made into a boom, which was buoyed up by means of casks. Spragge and his fleet watched this being done, for there was no wind, or, as he expressed it, we had " no opportunity of wind to do anything upon them." On the 8th of May they noticed that the corsairs ashore were reinforced by the arrival of horse- as well as foot-soldiers, which the Englishmen suspected rightly had come from Algiers. The Bougie corsairs greeted this arrival with wild cheering and by firing of the guns in their ships and castles, as well as by the display of colours.

About noon, just as Spragge was anxious to reopen operations, he was harassed by a flat calm. Luckily, however, at 2 p.m. a nice breeze sprang up, and the Revenge, Dragon, Advice and Mary advanced and let go in 3-1/2 fathoms nearer in, mooring stem and stern so that their broadsides might face Bougie's fortifications. The position was roughly thus. Looking towards Bougie, Spragge's six ships were moored roughly in a half-circle in the following order from left to right. First came the Portsmouth, then the Garland, the Dragon, the Mary, the Advice and finally the Revenge flagship. These were all, so to speak, in the foreground of the picture. In the background were the enemy's ships on the left, whilst on the right were the castles and fortifications. In the middle distance on the left was the boom defence already noted. The Revenge was in 4 fathoms, being close up to the castles and walls, and the fight began. For two hours these ships bombarded Bougie's ships and fortresses.

Spragge then decided to make a boat attack, his ships still remaining at anchor. He therefore sent away his pinnace, under the command of a man named Harman, "a Reformado seaman of mine." A "reformado," by the way,