h was quite separate from her main hold--there could be no
doubt that she had also done a little piracy whenever a convenient
opportunity had presented itself.

I was sent away directly after breakfast that morning in charge of a
couple of boats with orders to drag the creek for poor Mr Austin's
body, and in little more than an hour we fortunately found it quite
uninjured. The poor fellow had evidently been taken completely by
surprise, a gag being in his mouth, and his hands manacled behind him,
with a stout canvas bag containing two 18-pound shot lashed to his feet.
We took the body on board the _Daphne_, and it was at once conveyed
below to his own cabin, pending the construction of a coffin, the ensign
being at the same time hoisted half up to the peak.

This melancholy duty performed I was again sent away to drag for the
anchor and cable slipped by the _Virginia_ on the previous evening, and
these also I found, weighed, and conveyed on board the prize, where,
under Smellie's able supervision, the work of repairing and refitting
was going on apace.

About noon that same day a strange brig entered the river with the
French flag flying at her peak, and brought up in the creek about a
cable's length astern of us. We were at once struck with the marked
resemblance which the stranger bore to the _Virginia_--though it was by
no means so striking as the similarity between our prize and the _Black
Venus_--and we forthwith came to the conclusion that we now at last
beheld the veritable _Vestale_--the real Simon Pure--before us. And so,
upon Armitage boarding her, she proved to be; her captain, upon hearing
of the extraordinary personation of his craft so successfully played off
upon us by the _Virginia_, actually producing his commission to prove
his _bona fides_. During the course of this somewhat eventful day,
also, one of our lads learned from one of the prisoners that on the
occasion of our second encounter with the _Virginia_--when she so
cleverly pretended to be in pursuit of the _Black Venus_--she was
actually making the best of her way to Havana with the three hundred
slaves on board which she had accused her sister-ship of carrying off,
and that her elaborate signalling on that occasion was merely resorted
to for the purpose of hoodwinking us.

At four o'clock that afternoon, Mr Austin's body having been deposited
in the coffin which had been prepared for it, the hands were mustered on
deck in their clean cl