aw fit to round-to all standing, back his topsail, and hoist
Spanish colours, only to haul them down again in token of surrender.
Whereupon Mr Seaton, our first lieutenant, in charge of an armed boat's
crew, went away to take possession of the prize, and since I was the
only person on board possessing even a passable acquaintance with the
Spanish language, I was ordered to accompany him.

Our prize proved to be the _Dolores_, of two hundred tons measurement,
with--as we had suspected--a cargo of slaves, numbering three hundred
and fifty, which she had shipped in one of the numerous creeks at the
mouth of the Congo on the previous day, and with which she was bound for
Rio Grande. Her crew were transferred to the _Shark_; and then--the
second lieutenant being ill and quite unfit for service--I was put in
command of her, with a crew of fourteen men, and instructed to make the
best of my way to Sierra Leone. My crew of fourteen included Gowland,
our master's mate, and young Sinclair, a first-class volunteer, as well
as San Domingo, the servant of the midshipmen's mess, to act as steward,
and the cook's mate. We therefore mustered only five forecastle hands
to a watch, which I thought little enough for a schooner of the size of
the _Dolores_; but as we hoped to reach Sierra Leone in a week at the
outside, and as the schooner was unarmed, Captain Bentinck seemed to
think that we ought to be able to manage fairly well. By the time that
we had transferred ourselves and our traps to the prize it had fallen
quite dark. The _Shark_ therefore lost no time in hauling her wind in
pursuit of the strange brig, which by this time had run out of sight,
and of which the skipper of the _Dolores_ professed to know nothing
beyond the fact that she was French, was named the _Suzanne_, and was
running a cargo of slaves across to Martinique.

CHAPTER TWO.

CAPTURED BY A PIRATE.

When, in answer to the summons of our 24-pounders, the captain of the
_Dolores_ rounded-to and laid his topsail to the mast, he did not
trouble his crew to haul down the studding-sails, for he knew that his
ship was as good as lost to him, and the result was that the booms
snapped short off at the irons, like carrots, leaving a raffle of
slatting canvas, gear, and thrashing wreckage for the prize crew to
clear away. Thus, although we at once hauled-up for our port upon
parting company with the _Shark_, we had nearly an hour's hard work
before us in the dar