f
this themselves, for they now made a desperate attempt forward to carry
their antagonist by boarding, led on by the black captain. Just at this
moment the cutter's main-boom fell across the schooner's deck, close to
where we were sheltering ourselves from the shot the best way we could;
and while the rush forward was being made, by a sudden impulse Splinter
and I, followed by Peter and the dog (who with wonderful sagacity,
seeing the uselessness of resistance, had cowered quietly by my side
during the whole row), scrambled along it as the cutter's people were
repelling the attack on her bow, and all four of us, in our haste,
jumped down on the poor Irishman at the wheel.

"Murder, fire, rape, and robbery!--it is capsized, stove in, sunk,
burned, and destroyed I am! Captain, captain, we are carried aft
here--Och, hubbaboo for Patrick Donnally!"

There was no time to be lost; if any of the crew came aft we were dead
men, so we tumbled down through the cabin skylight, men and beast, the
hatch having been knocked off by a shot, and stowed ourselves away in
the side berths. The noise on deck soon ceased--the cannon were again
plied--gradually the fire slackened, and we could hear that the pirate
had scraped clear and escaped. Some time after this the lieutenant
commanding the cutter came down. Poor Mr. Douglas! both Mr. Splinter
and I knew him well. He sat down and covered his face with his hands,
while the blood oozed down between his fingers. He had received a
cutlass wound on the head in the attack. His right arm was bound up with
his neckcloth, and he was very pale.

"Steward, bring me a light.--Ask the doctor how many are killed and
wounded; and--do you hear?--tell him to come to me when he is done
forward, but not a moment sooner. To have been so mauled and duped by a
buccaneer; and my poor boat's crew----"

Splinter groaned. He started--but at this moment the man returned again.

"Thirteen killed, your honor, and fifteen wounded; scarcely one of us
untouched." The poor fellow's own skull was bound round with a bloody
cloth.

"God help me! Gold help me! but they have died the death of men. Who
knows what death the poor fellows in the boat have died!"--Here he was
cut short by a tremendous scuffle on the ladder, down which an old
quartermaster was trundled neck and crop into the cabin. "How now,
Jones?"

"Please your honor," said the man, as soon as he had gathered himself
up, and had time to turn his quid an