Page:Wonderful adventures of sixteen British seamen.pdf/13

 nothing. To escape to their own drugger 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 day-break-a slight breeze did spring up, and in an instant their hearts werowere [sic] 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 got beyond the range of the fort, the Aricans, to their utter astonishment, for they could not conjecture what had happened, as no other vessel was in sight, saw the Minerva bearing briskly down towards Moro-Blanco, a promontory on the south side of the bay, several miles distant from Arica. With the strong military force on board, they could not persuade themselves that there existed a possibility of her having been taken by an enemy. The most natural conclusion was, that the soldiers themselves had made a joint speculation of her. The alarm was immediately given in the fort, and throughout Arica; and in less than half an hour the harbour and beach were crowded with soldiers and sailors ready to embark in pursuit of the fugitive ship, in the hope, as the morning advanced, the breezobreeze [sic] would die away.

The Minerva had just rounded the blunt point of Moro-Blanco, when, as the Aricans had anticipated, it became a dead calm, and she once more lay like a log upon thothe [sic] water. Here, then, were the captors in a situation not much better than that from which they had so recently escaped. They were not to be daunted, however, by this fresh difficulty, but ordering the Spaniards on deck by two at a time, they pinioned them, and shipped