The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Pirate, by Frederick Marryat

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Title: The Pirate

Author: Frederick Marryat

Release Date: May 22, 2007 [EBook #21580]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PIRATE ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

The Pirate, by Captain Marryat.

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"The Pirate" was published in 1836, the ninth book to flow from
Marryat's pen.

It was created as an eBook in 1998, by Nick Hodson, and reformatted in
2005.

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THE PIRATE, BY CAPTAIN FREDERICK MARRYAT.

CHAPTER ONE.

THE BAY OF BISCAY.

It was in the latter part of the month of June, of the year seventeen
hundred and ninety something, that the angry waves of the Bay of Biscay
were gradually subsiding, after a gale of wind as violent as it was
unusual during that period of the year. Still they rolled heavily; and,
at times, the wind blew up in fitful, angry gusts, as if it would fain
renew the elemental combat; but each effort was more feeble, and the
dark clouds which had been summoned to the storm, now fled in every
quarter before the powerful rays of the sun, who burst their masses
asunder with a glorious flood of light and heat; and, as he poured down
his resplendent beams, piercing deep into the waters of that portion of
the Atlantic to which we now refer, with the exception of one object,
hardly visible, as at creation, there was a vast circumference of water,
bounded by the fancied canopy of heaven. We have said, with the
exception of one object; for in the centre of this picture, so simple,
yet so sublime, composed of the three great elements, there was a
remnant of the fourth. We say a remnant, for it was but the hull of a
vessel, dismasted, water-logged, its upper works only floating
occasionally above the waves, when a transient repose from their still
violent undulation permitted it to reassume its buoyancy. But this was
seldom; one moment it was deluged by the seas, which broke as they
poured over its gunwale; and the next, it rose from its sub