It took every hand to carry the long, heavy spar down to thebeach and lift the thick end over the gunwale. He sailed from Zanzibar not five weeks back, bound for the Horn. From a distance of only fifty paces it sweptthrough Hal's men, and almost every shot told. But that was not.
Selectedtribesmen, who might be useful as soldiers and servants, were allowedto remain in the colony but the rest had been driven out into thewilderness where they belonged. They swarmed up the shrouds and out along the yards and the canvasbillowed out until it shone in the sunlight like a soaringthunderhead. They watched in horror as the galleon bore down on them,growing larger with each second until she seemed to blot out all thestars and they could hear the voices of the men on her deck. Hal had two men in the bows taking soundings as he crept inshore, andas soon as the bottom began to shelve steeply he dropped anchor intwelve fathoms.
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