d smooth down his hair; but again
the uproar was renewed, and Donnally was lugged in, scrambling and
struggling between two seamen--"this here Irish chap, your honor, has
lost his wits, if so be he ever had any, your honor. He has gone mad
through fright."

"Fright be d----d!" roared Donnally; "no man ever frightened me; but as
his honor was skewering them bloody thieves forward, I was boarded and
carried aft by the devil, your honor--pooped by Beelzebub, by ----," and
he rapped his fist on the table until everything on it danced again.
"There were four of them, yeer honor--a black one and two blue ones--and
a pie-bald one, with four legs and a bushy tail--each with two horns on
his head, for all the world like those on Father M'Cleary's red cow--no,
she was humbled--it is Father Clannachan's, I mane--no, not his neither,
for his was the parish bull; fait, I don't know what I mane, except that
they had all horns on their heads, and vomited fire, and had each of
them a tail at his stern, twisting and twining like a conger eel, with a
blue light at the end on't."

"And dat's a lie, if ever dere was one," exclaimed Peter Mangrove,
jumping from the berth. "Look at me, you Irish tief, and tell me if I
have a blue light or a conger eel at my stern!"

This was too much for poor Donnally. He yelled out, "You'll believe your
own eyes now, yeer honor, when you see one o' dem bodily before you! Let
me go--let me go!" and, rushing up the ladder, he would, in all
probability, have ended his earthly career in the salt sea, had his
bullet-head not encountered the broadest part of the purser, who was in
the act of descending, with such violence, that he shot him out of the
companion several feet above the deck, as if he had been discharged from
a culverin; but the recoil sent poor Donnally, stunned and senseless, to
the bottom of the ladder. There was no standing all this; we laughed
outright, and made ourselves known to Mr. Douglas, who received us
cordially, and in a week we were landed at Port Royal.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] From _Tom Cringle's Log_.

THE CAPTURE OF PANAMA, 1671[2]

JOHN ESQUEMELING

Captain Morgan set forth from the castle of Chagre, towards Panama,
August 18, 1670. He had with him twelve hundred men, five boats laden
with artillery, and thirty-two canoes. The first day they sailed only
six leagues, and came to a place called De los Bracos. Here a party of
his men went ashore, only to sleep and stretch