did the same, both vessels sailing very fast, but
the distance growing less and less between us. The _Spray_ was doing
nobly; she was even more than at her best; but, in spite of all I
could do, she would broach now and then. She was carrying too much
sail for safety. I must reef or be dismasted and lose all, pirate or
no pirate. I must reef, even if I had to grapple with him for my life.

I was not long in reefing the mainsail and sweating it up--probably
not more than fifteen minutes; but the felucca had in the meantime so
shortened the distance between us that I now saw the tuft of hair on
the heads of the crew,--by which, it is said, Mohammed will pull the
villains up into heaven,--and they were coming on like the wind. From
what I could clearly make out now, I felt them to be the sons of
generations of pirates, and I saw by their movements that they were
now preparing to strike a blow. The exultation on their faces,
however, was changed in an instant to a look of fear and rage. Their
craft, with too much sail on, broached to on the crest of a great
wave. This one great sea changed the aspect of affairs suddenly as the
flash of a gun. Three minutes later the same wave overtook the _Spray_
and shook her in every timber. At the same moment the sheet-strop
parted, and away went the main-boom, broken short at the rigging.
Impulsively I sprang to the jib-halyards and down-haul, and instantly
downed the jib. The head-sail being off, and the helm put hard down,
the sloop came in the wind with a bound. While shivering there, but a
moment though it was, I got the mainsail down and secured inboard,
broken boom and all. How I got the boom in before the sail was torn I
hardly know; but not a stitch of it was broken. The mainsail being
secured, I hoisted away the jib, and, without looking round, stepped
quickly to the cabin and snatched down my loaded rifle and cartridges
at hand; for I made mental calculations that the pirate would by this
time have recovered his course and be close aboard, and that when I
saw him it would be better for me to be looking at him along the
barrel of a gun. The piece was at my shoulder when I peered into the
mist, but there was no pirate within a mile. The wave and squall that
carried away my boom dismasted the felucca outright. I perceived his
thieving crew, some dozen or more of them, struggling to recover their
rigging from the sea. Allah blacken their faces!

I sailed comfortably on under the