CHAPTER XX.
Leave Cherbourg—Storm off Cape Trafalgar—Coast of Morocco—Caravans—Moors bring fish—Ancient Moor swims to the ship—We return visits and are kicked into the sea—We bombard the troglodytes—Give up hope that the Rappahannock will meet us—Weigh anchor and have a narrow escape from ship-wreck and falling into the hands of the Moors.
One dark night in the middle of February, 1864, we weighed our anchor as quietly as possible, got under way, and slipped out of the western entrance to the harbor without seeing anything of either the Kearsarge or her consort, and with a clean bottom raced down the Channel and soon found ourselves on the broad Atlantic. We saw many ships, but molested none. Strange conduct for the Georgia, at which we wondered. But none knew, save our commander, whither we were bound, or what was our mission. Day after day we raced at full speed under steam.
Off Cape Trafalgar one night we ran into a fearful storm, the most terrific in my seafaring experience. We put the ship's head into the wind and barely kept steerage-way on her. The high seas dashed over the ship in such volumes of water that to keep from being washed overboard. Lieutenant King, the quartermaster, and I lashed ourselves in the rigging ten feet above the deck. At one time the wind was so furious that it blew the tops off the enormous waves and the sea became one mass of seething foam in which the little Georgia floundered and wallowed until we had but little hopes that she would live through it. But with daylight fortunately, for us, both sea and wind went down, and by eight o'clock in the morning the officers were able to come out of the wardroom and we were relieved. The door leading into the officers' quarters as well as the hatches had been battened down to keep the water out, and no one could get in or out while
