reat quantity of fish in them, apparently
caught that morning. O'Brien pointed to a very large skate--"Murder in
Irish!" cried he, "it's the very ghost of of my grandmother: we'll have
her if it's only for the family likeness. Peter, put your finger into
the gills, and drag her down to the boat." I could not force my finger
into the gills; and as the animal appeared quite dead, I hooked my
finger into his mouth; but I made a sad mistake, for the animal was
alive, and immediately closed its jaws, nipping my finger to the bone,
and holding it so tight that I could not withdraw it, and the pain was
too great to allow me to pull it away by main force, and tear my finger,
which it held so fast. There I was, caught in a trap, and made a
prisoner by a flatfish. Fortunately, I hallooed loud enough to make
O'Brien, who was close down to the boats, with a large cod-fish under
each arm, turn round and come to my assistance. At first he could not
help me, from laughing so much; but at last he forced open the jaw of
the fish with his cutlass, and I got my finger out, but very badly torn
indeed. I then took off my garter, tied it round the tail of the skate,
and dragged it to the boat, which was all ready to shove off. My finger
was very bad for three weeks, and the officers laughed at me very much,
saying that I narrowly escaped being made a prisoner of by an "old
maid."

We continued our cruise along the coast, until we had run down into the
Bay of Arcason, where we captured two or three vessels, and obliged many
more to run on shore. We had chased a convoy of vessels to the bottom
of the bay: the wind was very fresh when we hauled off, after running
them on shore; and the surf on the beach even at that time was so great,
that they were certain to go to pieces before they could be got afloat
again. We were obliged to double-reef the topsails as soon as we hauled
to the wind, and the weather looked very threatening. In an hour
afterwards, the whole sky was covered with one black cloud, which sank
so low as nearly to touch our mast-heads, and a tremendous sea, which
appeared to have risen up almost by magic, rolled in upon us, setting
the vessel on a dead lee shore. As the night closed in, it blew a
dreadful gale, and the ship was nearly buried with the press of canvas
which she was obliged to carry: for had we sea-room, we should have been
lying-to under storm staysails; but we were forced to carry on at all
risks, that