shot as a
challenge. They fired again immediately three or four guns, but fired
them so confusedly that we could easily see they did not understand
their business; when we considered how to lay them on board, and so to
come thwart them, if we could; but falling, for want of wind, open to
them, we gave them a fair broadside. We could easily see, by the
confusion that was on board, that they were frightened out of their
wits; they fired here a gun and there a gun, and some on that side that
was from us, as well as those that were next to us. The next thing we
did was to lay them on board, which we did presently, and then gave
them a volley of our small shot, which, as they stood so thick, killed a
great many of them, and made all the rest run down under their hatches,
crying out like creatures bewitched. In a word, we presently took the
ship, and having secured her men, we chased the other two. One was
chiefly filled with women, and the other with lumber. Upon the whole, as
the granddaughter of the Great Mogul was our prize in the first ship, so
in the second was her women, or, in a word, her household, her eunuchs,
all the necessaries of her wardrobe, of her stables, and of her kitchen;
and in the last, great quantities of household stuff, and things less
costly, though not less useful.

But the first was the main prize. When my men had entered and mastered
the ship, one of our lieutenants called for me, and accordingly I jumped
on board. He told me he thought nobody but I ought to go into the great
cabin, or, at least, nobody should go there before me; for that the lady
herself and all her attendance was there, and he feared the men were so
heated they would murder them all, or do worse.

I immediately went to the great cabin door, taking the lieutenant that
called me along with me, and caused the cabin door to be opened. But
such a sight of glory and misery was never seen by buccaneer before. The
queen (for such she was to have been) was all in gold and silver, but
frightened and crying, and, at the sight of me, she appeared trembling,
and just as if she was going to die. She sat on the side of a kind of a
bed like a couch, with no canopy over it, or any covering; only made to
lie down upon. She was, in a manner, covered with diamonds, and I, like
a true pirate, soon let her see that I had more mind to the jewels than
to the lady.

However, before I touched her, I ordered the lieutenant to place a guard
at the cabin