ir
prize, for the merchantmen must, before this, have given the alarm,
and the coast was continually patrolled by British cruisers.

"You have a very imperfect knowledge of my position, Captain Barker;
and it naturally leads you to jump to very wrong conclusions.
To begin with, you imagine me a traitor."

"I do."

"To whom? To King William, I suppose?"

"Well, as William is the king whose law seems most likely to
interfere with your present threats, I will instance King William."

"You are mistaken. Until you came into sight this squadron was
advancing on Harwich under my command. You understand? Well, before
it started I had sent word to William of its intention. In other
words, from first to last I designed the whole expedition in his
interests. Had we gone on, by this time half a dozen British
frigates would have been upon us."

"_My God! And they are here!_"

As Captain Barker yelled it out, a broad flame illumined the cabin,
and the crash of broken glass and rending timbers mingled with a roar
that shook the seas for miles.

And in the light of this thunderous broadside Captain Salt rose
slowly, lifted his arms, swayed and dropped forward, striking the
table with his brow; then slid down upon the floor, stone-dead.

_VIII--The Galley (in the hold)._

From his second swoon Tristram awoke to find the light of a lantern
flashing in his face.

The _Merry Maid's_ flag had scarcely been hauled down before night
fell; and almost with its falling, while the men of the other galleys
were helping to clear _L'Heureuse's_ decks, they perceived lights
twinkling off the mouth of the Thames.

At once concluding that these were the lights of English men-of-war
sent to pursue them, they used the utmost dispatch. Their first
concern was to throw the dead overboard and stow the wounded in the
hold. But so closely they were pressed by the fear of losing their
prize and being made prisoners, that it is to be feared as many of
the living were thrown over for dead as of those who were dead in
reality.

This, at any rate, came near to being Tristram's fate. For when the
keeper came to unchain the killed and wounded of his seat he was
still without consciousness lying among the corpses, bathed in their
blood and his own.

"A clean sweep of this bench," said the keeper.

He and his fellows, therefore, without further examination, did but
unchain the slaves and then fling them over. It was sufficient that