"
He went on to assure us that the seas hereabouts were infested with
Moorish pirates, and to draw some dismal pictures of what might
happen if we fell in with a prowling Sallateen.
With all his fears he kept his reckoning admirably, and we
half-sailed, half-drifted through the Strait, and so near to the Rock
of Gibraltar that, passing within range of it at the hour of
reveilly, we heard the British bugles sounding to us like ghosts
through the fog. Captain Pomery here was in two minds about
laying-to and waiting for a breeze; but a light slant of wind
encouraged him to carry the _Gauntlet_ through. It bore us between
the invisible strait, and for a score of sea-miles beyond; then, as
casually as it had helped, it deserted us.
Day broke and discovered us with the Moorish coast low on our
starboard horizon. To Mr. Fett and Mr. Badcock this meant nothing,
and my father might have left them to their ignorance had he not in
the course of the forenoon caught them engaged upon a silly piece of
mischief, which was, to scribble on small sheets of paper various
affecting narratives--as that the _Gauntlet_ was sinking, or
desperately attacked by pirates, in such and such a latitude and
longitude--insert them in empty bottles, and commit them to the
chances of the deep.
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