which it was bent; but when this was lowered and the new foresail was bent on in its place, I saw that the head of the latter extended from end to end of the spar, and that this sail was also considerably longer along the foot, so that we were now spreading a very large area of canvas. The mizzen, which had been repaired, was also hoisted, and the watchful skipper carefully trimmed his sheets to each shift of the variable breeze. Whenever possible, we sailed with our lateens goose-winged.
We passed close to the dhow that was tacking towards us; and her reis, when we hailed him, confirmed what our skipper had said. 'There is a Feringhi on the vessel ahead,' he shouted. The sky cleared, and our crew were employed in drying their drenched garments, as we sailed very slowly on before the gradually failing wind; but all the while we gained steadily on the other dhow, and at one o'clock we were about two miles astern of her. Then it fell calm for a few hours, and our sails hung uselessly flapping and chafing from the groaning yards as we wallowed in the swell. An hour before sunset a light breeze sprang up from the south of east, so that our tacks were brought amidship and our sheets were flattened in; for we could just lay our course close-hauled on the port tack. The wind soon freshened, and we began to overhaul our adversary rapidly. Shortly after dark a squall struck us. The El Hamdi proved herself very fast on a wind: leaning well over, with the water rippling over her
