Page:Intrepid & daring adventures of sixteen British seamen.pdf/14

14 and topsail yards. In any other than the most desperate circumstances, they would have been altogether unequal to the fatigue which, exhausted as they were by previous labour and want, they sustained in putting the vessel in such trim as to enable her to sail out of harbour. At length the sails were bent, but then there was hardly enough of wind to make them flap against the masts. It was, in fact, and had been during the whole night, a perfect calm. The situation of the captors became every moment more perilous. Should morning dawn upon them where they lay, they were lost; for what defence could they make against a combined attack from the fort and from all the boats of Arica? Already voices were heard on the shore, and they dreaded that an early visit to the ship would be the first duty of ihethe [sic] custom-house officers. They were in an agony of hope, fear, and anxiety. Daniel in the den of lions was not more awkward or uncomfortably situated; and yet what could they do? Why, without wind they could do nothing. To escape now in their own drugger-boat appeared utterly impossible, for the lighter sailing boats of the Aricans would soon overtake and capture her. At this most critical moment—not half an hour before daybreak—a slight breeze did spring up, and in an instant their hearts were as much elated as the instant before they had been cast down. The cables were immediately cut, the sails set, and the Minerva stood out to sea. The breeze was light, however, and before she was beyond the range of the fort, the Aricans, to their utter astonishment, for they could not