enemy fled; some leaped
down the hatchways, others took shelter on the bowsprit and jib-boom,
and the more nimble sprang up the shrouds, where, as my father declared,
like so many monkeys, they hung chattering and asking for quarter.

"Of course, if they would but have been quiet and peaceable, we had no
wish to kill them," he used to say, "and glad enough we were when we
found ourselves in possession of the brig, just about five minutes from
the time we had first stepped on her decks. It was about the hardest
bit of work I ever was engaged in," he always averred. "We lost our
Second-Lieutenant, five seamen and three marines killed, three officers
and twenty-two men wounded. The Frenchman had a crew of one hundred and
sixty men and boys, out of whom there were no less than fourteen killed
and twenty wounded--pretty badly, too, for we were not apt to use our
cutlasses over gently, you may suppose.

"We had still plenty of work to do, for, though cowed for the moment,
the Frenchmen would not have made much ceremony in trying to turn the
tables again upon us. We had barely fifty men fit for work, and they
had still one hundred and twenty--considerable odds against us.

"Mr Schank, as soon as he saw that the deck was ours, directed one of
the officers to hurry down into the cabin and secure the private
signals, and ordered me, at the same time, to go with a couple of
marines to take charge of the magazine, for one never knows what
desperate fellows may do when they have lost their ship, and some mad
chap or other might have set fire to it, and blown us and themselves up
into the air. Such things have been done before now.

"The next thing we did was to carry the wounded below. Our own people
and the enemy's were treated alike. Poor fellows! How some of them did
groan when they were lifted up. Next, an order was given to heave the
dead overboard, `And look out, lads, that you don't send any with the
breath in their bodies to feed the sharks,' said the First-Lieutenant.
The caution did not come too soon. Two men, one of whom was Paddy
Brady, were about shoving a big Frenchman through a port, when the poor
fellow uttered a groan. `What is that you say, monsieur? Just speak
again. Are you alive or dead?' exclaimed Brady. No answer was
returned, and Paddy began to drag the dead body nearer the port. Again
a groan, considerably louder than the first was heard. `Arrah, now,'
said Paddy, `I wish you would just m