Captain Canot by Brantz Mayer

It was a sweltering July, and the "rainy season" proved its tremendous power by almost incessant deluges. In the breathless calms that held me spell-bound on the coast, the rain came down in such torrents that I often thought the solid water would bury and submerge our schooner. Now and then, a south-wester and the current would fan and drift us along; yet the tenth day found us rolling from side to side in the longitude of the Cape de Verds.

Day broke with one of its customary squalls and showers. As the cloud lifted, my look-out from the cross-trees announced a sail under our lee. It was invisible from deck, in the folds of the retreatingmain, but, in the dead calm that followed, the distant whistle of a boatswain was distinctly audible. Before I could deliberate all my doubts were solved by a shot in our mainsail, and the crack of a cannon. There could be no question that the unwelcome visitor was a man-of-war.