nded on
coolness and judgment. The captain behaved perfectly well in this
critical instant, commanding a dead silence, and the closest attention
to his orders.

I was too much interested at this moment to feel the concern that I
might otherwise have experienced. On the forecastle, it appeared to us
all that we should be boarded in a minute, for one of the proas was
actually within a hundred feet, though losing her advantage a little by
getting under the lee of our sails. Kite had ordered us to muster
forward of the rigging, to meet the expected leap with a discharge of
muskets, and then to present our pikes, when I felt an arm thrown around
my body, and was turned inboard, while another person assumed my place.
This was Neb, who had thus coolly thrust himself before me, in order to
meet the danger first. I felt vexed, even while touched with the
fellow's attachment and self-devotion, but had no time to betray either
feeling before the crews of the proas gave a yell, and discharged some
fifty or sixty matchlocks at us. The air was full of bullets, but they
all went over our heads. Not a soul on board the _John_ was hurt. On our
side, we gave the gentlemen the four sixes, two at the nearest and two
at the stern-most proa, which was still near a cable's length distant.
As often happens, the one seemingly farthest from danger, fared the
worst. Our grape and canister had room to scatter, and I can at this
distant day still hear the shrieks that arose from that craft! They were
like the yells of fiends in anguish. The effect on that proa was
instantaneous; instead of keeping on after her consort, she wore short
round on her heel, and stood away in our wake, on the other tack,
apparently to get out of the range of our fire.

I doubt if we touched a man in the nearest proa. At any rate, no noise
proceeded from her, and she came up under our bows fast. As every gun
was discharged, and there was not time to load them, all now depended on
repelling the boarders. Part of our people mustered in the waist, where
it was expected the proa would fall alongside, and part on the
forecastle. Just as this distribution was made, the pirates cast their
grapnel. It was admirably thrown, but caught only by a ratlin. I saw
this, and was about to jump into the rigging to try what I could do to
clear it, when Neb again went ahead of me, and cut the ratlin with his
knife. This was just as the pirates had abandoned sails and oars, and
had risen to