otherwise much hurt. In a short time the
wreck drifted on shore on the north side of the island of Tenedos, where
she blew up with a tremendous explosion, which must have been heard
miles away. We who were saved had reason to be thankful, but of the
ship's company two hundred and fifty perished that night by fire or
water, including several of the officers, together with the greater
number of the midshipmen, who, being unable to swim, were drowned before
they could reach the boats. There were three women on board, one of
whom was saved by following her husband down a rope from the jibboom.
The boatswain had two sons on board. When the alarm of fire was given,
he had rushed down, and bringing up one of them, had thrown him into the
sea, where he was picked up by the jolly-boat. He then descended for
the other, but never returned, being, as several of the midshipmen
probably were, suffocated by the dense smoke rising from that part of
the ship. I could go on into the middle of next year, as the saying is,
telling you of my shipwrecks and adventures, but I have a notion that
you would get tired of listening before I had brought my yarn to an
end."

"Oh, no! No! Go on, Mr Riddle, go on, go on!" we shouted out.

"Well, then, young gentlemen, I'll just tell you the way we once took a
Spanish sloop-of-war.

"I belonged at the time to the `Niobe' frigate out in the West Indies.
We had been cruising for some weeks without taking a prize, when we
captured a Spanish merchant schooner, after a long chase. From some of
her crew our captain learnt that a Spanish corvette, of twenty guns, lay
up a harbour in Cuba. He determined to cut her out. He had intended
sending the boats away for that service, when our second lieutenant, as
gallant an officer as ever stepped, proposed to take in our prize under
Spanish colours, and running alongside the corvette, to capture her by
boarding. Having shifted the prisoners to the frigate, the second
lieutenant, with three midshipmen and thirty volunteers, I being one of
them, went on board the schooner. There were batteries on either side,
with heavy guns which would have opened fire upon us had it for a moment
been suspected what we really were. The lieutenant and one of the
midshipmen blackened their faces, and rigged themselves out in check
shirts and handkerchiefs bound round their heads. The rest of the crew
wanted to do the same, but the lieutenant would only allow me and
an