countenance
showing the anxiety he felt.

"It must be done," I heard him say. "Send Mr Block aft." He was the
gunner. "We must heave some of our upper-deck guns overboard, Mr
Block." The gunner seemed inclined to plead for them.

"It must be done," said the Captain. And now the crew, who would have
sprung joyfully to the guns to man them against an enemy, began with
unwilling hands to cast the tackles loose in order to launch them into
the ocean. Watching the roll of the ship, first one gun was sent
through the port into the deep--another and another followed.

"By my faith it's like pulling out the old girl's teeth, and giving her
no chance of biting," observed Pat Brady, who was standing near me.

"We will keep a few of her grinders in though, Pat," observed Kiddle:
"we must handle them the smarter if we come alongside an enemy, to make
amends for those we have lost."

The heavy weight on her upper-deck being thus got rid of, the frigate
laboured less, and the pumps being kept going, the water no longer
continued to gain upon us. However, it was necessary to work the chain
pumps night and day to keep the water under. At length we arrived at
Amboyna, where we remained some time repairing damages and refitting the
frigate as far as we were able.

"I wish we were aboard our own ship again," said Kiddle to me one day,
"for I don't know how it is, but the crew of this ship declare that she
is doomed to be unlucky. I don't know how many men they have not lost.
They have scarcely taken a prize, and they are always getting into
misfortune. It's not the fault of the Captain, for he is as good a
seaman as ever stepped, and the officers are all very well in their way,
and so there's no doubt it's the ship's fault. Some of the people, to
be sure, don't like Mr Noalles, the pilot. They don't know who he is
or where he came from, though that to my mind has nothing to do with it,
for it's not likely he would be aboard here if he was not known to be a
right sort of person."

At length we once more sailed for a place called Booroo, where we got a
supply of wood and water, as well as refreshments and stock, and then
sailed for the Straits of Banca. As we were standing along the coast,
when daylight broke one morning, we saw towards the land a number of
vessels, which were pronounced to be pirate prows. In their midst was a
large brig, which they had apparently captured. We were standing
towards them when the land