s and the drawers, the watch
reported icebergs on both bows--and, what was more to the point, coveys
of Polar bears on the icebergs. I grasped a rifle or two, and hastened
on deck. The spectacle was indeed magnificent--it generally is, with
icebergs on both bows, and these were exceptionally enormous icebergs.
But I hadn't come there to paint Academy pictures, so the captain's
gig was in the water and manned almost ere the boatswain's whistle had
ceased sounding, and we were pulling hard for the Polar bears--myself
and the rifles in the stern-sheets.

I have rarely enjoyed better shooting than I got during that afternoon's
tramp over the icebergs. Perhaps I was in specially good form; perhaps
the bears "rose" well. Anyhow, the bag was a portentous one. In later
days, on reading of the growing scarcity of Polar bears, my conscience
has pricked me; but that afternoon I experienced no compunction.
Nevertheless, when the huge pile of skins had been hoisted on board,
and a stiff grog had been served out to the crew of the captain's gig,
I ordered the schooner's head to be set due south. For icebergs were
played out, for the moment, and it was getting to be time for something
more tropical.

Tropical was a mild expression of what was to come, as was shortly
proved. It was about three bells in the next day's forenoon watch when
the look-out man first sighted the pirate brigantine. I disliked the
looks of her from the first, and, after piping all hands to quarters,
had the brass carronade on the fore-deck crammed with grape to the
muzzle.

This proved a wise precaution. For the flagitious pirate craft, having
crept up to us under the colours of the Swiss Republic, a state with
which we were just then on the best possible terms, suddenly shook out
the skull-and-cross-bones at her masthead, and let fly with round-shot
at close quarters, knocking into pieces several of my crew, who could
ill be spared. The sight of their disconnected limbs aroused my ire
to its utmost height, and I let them have the contents of the brass
carronade, with ghastly effect. Next moment the hulls of the two ships
were grinding together, the cold steel flashed from its scabbard, and
the death-grapple had begun.

In spite of the deadly work of my grape-gorged carronade, our foe still
outnumbered us, I reckoned, by three to one. Honour forbade my fixing
it at a lower figure--this was the minimum rate at which one dared to do
business with pirates. The