cer
with his sword between his teeth as he swung over the bulwarks. The
first sound which greeted the new-comers was from below, and from the
throat of the honest skipper. Down the open companion-way leaped the
officer, with half a dozen stout, eager sailors at his heels, and dashed
right into the lower cabin. There was the brave old skipper, with but
one arm free, shielding himself and struggling--faint and well-nigh
exhausted--from the knives of the drunken brace of rascals who had been
left to guard him. A pistol in the hands of one of this pair was pointed
with an unsteady aim at the officer as he entered, but the ball struck
the empty rum-bottle on the table and flew wide of its mark; and before
the smoke of the powder had cleared away, a sword and cutlass had passed
through and through both their bodies, and they fell dead upon the cabin
floor.

While Captain Blunt found breath to give a rapid explanation of the
trouble, and while the brig was once more got under control and the
wounded cared for, we will take a look at the man-of-war and the part
she bore in the business.

At the first sound of the warning gun from the cruiser the schooner
began to show life; and drawing her head sheets, she wore short round on
her heel, with every thing ready to run up her fore and aft sails, and a
stay-tackle likewise rove and hanging over the low gunwale to hook on to
the boat and hoist it in the moment it came alongside. Meanwhile the
"Scourge" had shot ahead of the brig, and wearing round her forefoot,
with her starboard tacks on board, she emerged out beyond, like a hound
just slipped from the leash. As she cleared the brig, the schooner lay
with bare masts about three cables' length to windward, and the rattle
of oars told that her boat had just scraped alongside. At that moment a
clear, determined voice shouted through the trumpet,

"Level your guns! Take good aim! Fire!"

A brilliant series of sheets of flame burst forth from the corvette's
battery, lighting up the water and jet black wales, and away aloft to
the great towering maze of rigging and sails to the trucks, with the
topmen clustering to windward, and their very eyes and teeth lit up in
the glare; then, too, the crews of the guns, in their trim frocks and
trowsers; the marines on the top-gallant forecastle, with their
firelocks and white cross-belts; and abaft a knot of officers on the
poop, with night-glasses to their eyes, all standing out as clear as day