d could, if required, be concentrated upon any one point
in it.

"Hurrah!" shouted Smellie, rising to his feet and drawing his sword;
"hurrah, lads, there is our game! Give way and go at them. I'll take
the brig, Armitage; you tackle the brigantine, and leave Williams to
deal with the schooner. Now bend your backs, launches; there is a glass
of grog all round waiting for you if we are alongside first."

"Hurroo! pull, bhoys, and let's shecure that grog annyhow," exclaimed
the irrepressible Flanaghan; and with another cheer and a hearty laugh
the men stretched themselves out and plied the stout ashen oars until
the water fairly buzzed again under the launch's bows, and it almost
seemed as though they would lift her bodily out of the water.

As for Armitage and Williams, they were evidently quite determined not
to be beaten in the race if they could help it. Both were on their
feet, their drawn swords in their right hands, pistols in their left,
and their bodies bobbing energetically forward, in approved racing
fashion, at every stroke of the oars; whilst the voice of first one and
then the other could be heard encouraging their respective crews with
such exclamations as:

"Pull now! pull _hard! There_ she lifts! _Now_ she travels! There we
draw ahead. _Well_ pulled; again so," and so on, she men all the while
straining at the oars with a zeal and energy which left in the wake of
each boat a long line of swirling, foamy whirlpools.

We were within about eighty yards of the slavers--the launch leading by
a good half length--when a voice on board the brig uttered some word of
command, and that same instant--_crash_! came a broadside at us, fired
simultaneously from the three ships. The guns were well-aimed, the shot
flying close over and all round us, tearing and thrashing up the placid
surface of the water about the boats, and sprinkling us to such an
extent that, for the moment, we seemed to be passing through a heavy
shower; yet, strange to say, no damage was done.

Before the guns could be again loaded we were alongside, and then
ensued--so far at least as the launch was concerned--a few minutes of
such desperate hand-to-hand fighting as I have never since witnessed.
We dashed alongside the brig in the wake of her larboard main rigging,
and as the boat's side touched that of the slaver every man dropped his
oar, seized his cutlass, and sprang for the main channels. Here,
however, we were received so warm