Page:Daring deeds of famous pirates; true stories of the stirring adventures, bravery and resource of pirates, filibusters & buccaneers (1917).djvu/48

 They were warned that it was especially risky to change sail at break of day when the rising sun might make this action easily observable. A man was to be sent aloft to scan the sea, looking for these rovers and keep a good look out. That black sail was called the "wolf," because it had the colour and cunning of such an animal. At night, too, similar precautions were employed against any danger of piratical attack, strict silence being absolutely enforced, so that the boatswain was not even allowed to use his whistle, nor the ship's bell to be sounded. Every one knows how easily a sound carries on the sea, especially by night, so the utmost care was to be exercised lest a pirate hovering about might have the rich merchant ship's presence betrayed to her avaricious ears.

But the Saracens, whose origin I have just mentioned, must not be confused with the Barbarian corsairs. It is with the latter—the grand pirates of the South—that I pass on now to deal. So powerful did they become that it took the efforts of the great maritime powers of Europe till the first quarter of the nineteenth century before they could exterminate this scourge: and even to-day, in this highly civilised century, if you were to be becalmed off the coast of North Africa in a sailing yacht, you would soon find some of the descendants of these Barbarian corsairs coming out with their historic tendency to kill you and pillage your ship. If this statement should seem to any reader somewhat incredible, I would refer him to the captain of any modern steamship who habitually passes that coast: and I would beg also to call to his attention the incident a few years ago that occurred to the famous English racing yacht Ailsa, which was lying becalmed somewhere between Spain and Africa. But for a lucky breeze springing up, her would-be assailants might have captured a very fine prize.