strength might have been) could only
have held out for a few more rounds.

"Hurrah! Hurrah!" shouted the raiders. "The fort is ours!"

"And it's a sorry victory," said one of the crew, "for there's nothing
here worth the having, except the cannon, and they couldn't stand more
than two more shots without blowing up. I call it a pretty hollow
success."

In spite of this the men of Charleston were well pleased. They had
dispersed the pirates; taken their fort; and had re-captured a
schooner which had recently been taken only a few miles from the
harbor-mouth of that fair, southern city.

When they sailed into their home port they received a tremendous
ovation. The bells were rung in all the churches; shots were fired;
trumpets were blown.

"We could fall in with nothing that would stay for us upon the seas,"
said Captain Walker, modestly; but, in spite of this, he was treated
like a great hero. All the influential persons in the Colony offered
to sign a request that he might be given the command of a king's ship;
but this he declined. So they tendered him an immense tract of land if
he would remain in that country and drive off the pirates when next
they became too bold and daring; but this he also declined, and stuck
to his ship. In a few weeks he sailed for the Barbadoes, and then to
England, in company with three unarmed trading-vessels which placed
themselves under his convoy. The good people of Charleston bade him a
sad and affectionate farewell.

George Walker sailed forth smiling, but he was now to have far more
trouble than his little affair with the pirates.

When half way to England, a terrific gale struck the _Duke William_
and her convoys, which separated them by many miles, and made this
good vessel (which had dispersed the pirates) leak like a sieve. The
gale continued in its violence, while Captain Walker was so ill that
the ship's surgeon despaired of his life. But note how grit and nerve
pulled him through!

On the second day of the tempest, a sailor rushed into his cabin,
crying:

"Captain! Captain! We'll founder, for the water is pouring into our
bottom by the hogshead. We're gone for unless we take to the boats!"

Captain Walker was not the man to leave his ship in such a crisis.

"Throw all of the guns overboard, but two!" he ordered. "We need those
in order to signal for help if a vessel comes near us. That will
lighten us so that we can still float awhile."

This was done, but, as th