A Privateer s Good Fortune
It was like a curtain going up in a dark theater when the squall rumbled on southward and revealed a two-masted side-wheeler flying the stars and stripes. We closed quickly, hailed her after a shot across her prow, and she luffed her sails and stopped her engine. We lay alongside and I boarded her with a couple of my foulest-looking men. I met the startled captain, told him I was making his fine bark a prize and asked him to get his people off. He said he had some passengers and they soon were...