liver us up to the
authorities as soon as he arrived. I replied, in great anger, that he
would then be convinced of his error, if it was an error, on his part;
that his conduct was infamous, and he looked like a scoundrel, and I
believed him to be one.

"You call me a scoundrel, do you," said he, levelling a pistol at my
head.

"You call us scoundrels, do you," cried the boy I have made mention
of, and who was evidently the son of the captain, taking up another
pistol in his hand. "Shall I shoot him, father?"

"No, Peleg; not yet; we will pay them all when we get in. Take him
away, and put him in irons with the rest," said the captain; and I was
immediately dragged forward between decks through a door in the
bulk-heads, where I found the Portuguese captain and three seamen
already in irons.

"This is pretty treatment," said he to me.

"Yes, it is, indeed," replied I; "but I will make him smart for it
when we arrive."

"Shall we ever arrive?" said the Portuguese captain, looking at me and
compressing his lips.

"I say, my man," said I to the seaman who stood over us with a pistol
and a cutlass, "who are you; and what are you? Tell us the truth: are
you pirates?"

"I never was yet," replied he, "nor do I mean to be; but our skipper
says that you are, and that he knew you as soon as you came alongside.
That's all I can say about it."

"Why, if we are pirates, as he says, and he recognizes us, he must
have been in pirates' company, that is clear."

"Well; he may have been, for all I know," replied the man. "I don't
consider him any very great things; but he is our captain, and we must
obey orders."

The man now brought forward the other three men who had been left in
the boat. They told us that the boat had been cleared; all the
provisions, stores, sails, &c. had been taken out of her;--a proof
that she had been gutted and then cut adrift;--that all our bundles
were down in the captain's cabin, and that the ill-looking urchin, his
son, had overhauled them, one after another, and handed to his father
all the money that he had found; that they had been searched very
carefully; and that they had heard the captain say that we were all to
be sent up, one by one, and searched in the same manner;--and so it
proved. I was first taken aft to have my pockets rummaged by the
little villain, and as soon as I had been led forward and again put
into irons, the Portuguese captain and three other seamen were sent
for and t