The gamine young woman stood at the taffrail of the westbound brigantine, her long blond hair flowing behind her in the breeze, as she stared into the sun rising over the Atlantic. As she watched she was able to make out the shape of a rapidly approaching ship emerging from the orange orb of the rising sun on the horizon.
The crew of the brigantine had also seen the approaching ship, and though they were able to make out her British colors in the glare, the captain of the merchant brig was not fooled, putting on as much sail as the aged ship would take, fearing that their pursuers were of a piratical nature.
It was the habit of pirates to patrol the middle of the Atlantic for their prey by alternating between a northward and a southward course, waiting for westbound vessels to cross their paths. As soon as their prey had appeared, they would break off and pursue them. And indeed this is what had happened. The pirate sloop had come across the brig just as it was finishing one of its southward swings and they had quickly altered course to chase the larger merchant ship. As the young woman watched from the stern of the brig, the sloop was slowly closing in on its prey.
"You had best get bellow," the boatswain, who was patrolling the deck of the brig, told her.
"Yes, sir," the young woman meekly responded, reluctantly beginning to make her way back to her cabin.
On board the sloop the crew was preparing to board the brig. The pirate captain had ordered his crew to arm themselves and prepare the boarding hooks, as the distance between the two ships decreased.
"We'll be able take her easy", he gloried, "Take down the Jack and put up the Roger. We should be upon them momentarily."
Amelia wasn't having a good time on the passage to colonies. Being cooped up most of the time her cabin with her crazy mother was not her idea of a good time, and now the one time she had been able to sneak out, she had been told to go back by the boson. The small cabin they shared, in the brig's forecastle, had only one small porthole, which was the only source of natural light during the day. She spent most of her days with her needlework and secretly when her mother was sleeping she read the scandalous new novel her father had sent her and she had smuggled on board in her sewing kit. Rereading it over and over, once she had finished it. .
This latest novel that her father had sent her was the story of young woman whose father had died while she was a young girl and had been cheated out of her father's fortune by a cruel stepmother. Sold as mail order bride by her stepmother, the heroine is sent to the colonies to be the wife of a poor farmer. However, en route to the colonies the ship that she is traveling on is intercepted by pirates, and the young handsome pirate captain falls in love with her and takes her back to England. He then helps her to recover her father's fortune and they live happily ever after. How Amelia longed for something like that to happen to her. To be caught by a ruggedly handsome pirate captain and ravished, only to have him fall enthrall to her beauty and take her away from this tedious voyage.
On deck the sailors of the brig were preparing to be boarded. The brig captain, not wanting to risk the lives of his crew and passengers had thought it best to surrender to the pirates without a fight. As the pirates came aboard the men of the brig put up no resistance, letting themselves be striped of their arms. Amelia, hidden away in her cabin, saw none of this however. Her first knowledge that their ship had been captured was a pounding on her cabin door and the loud demand that the occupants of the cabin come out on deck. The door was broken open and a dirty, smelly man in worn sea clothes, with a cutlass in his hand, demanded that they go on deck.
"Get on deck ye wenches, we got plans for you" he bellowed.
Amelia's mother, who as usual was in hysterics, cried out "Oh my god, they are going to kill us."
Amelia silently took her mother by the wrist and tried lead her by the swarthy man, but her mother resisted.
"No I won't go!" she cried.
"Come on mother, we must do what the man says. If we fight him now, it will only be worse for us."
Eventually Amelia was able to get her mother out of their cabin and up on to the deck. Once they were on deck they saw that the crew of the brig had been gathered at the rear of the boat and was surrounded by pirates. Amelia and her mother were forced to join the rest of the passengers who had been gathered at the middle of the ship. The pirates were busy having them empty their pockets, while other pirates were still down below searching their cabins for wealth.
The pirate who seemed to be in charge of the boarding crew seemed to be straight out of her visions of her handsome pirate prince. Trim and well muscled; he had short brown hair and a rakish goatee. He walked down the line of passengers examining them one by one.
"Aren't you the pretty one?" He said when he got to Amelia. "Going to have you first I am," dragging her by her hair to the rail at the side of the ship.
"A coward you are, taking me defenseless as I am,"
"What do you say?" he hollered incredulously.
Having spent her youth cooped up in her father's house with nothing but his library to keep her company, she had a strange idea of her place in the world, feeling more at home with the heroes of Homer than among the line of cowering women that faced the pirates. Many a time in the forests of his estates she imagined assaulting the walls of Troy, running with Achilles, watching him run Hector through with his spear. Some times a poacher would come into her father's lands, intent of filling his larder with the deer that ran there in abundance and end up by being beaten soundly by this "wee little wench". She was not about to let a coward such as this pirate have his way with her without a fight.
