ion of yielding my ship to any such vermin without making a fight for
it; and my own lads were quite of the same mind as myself, not liking
the idea of being locked up for years in a French or a Spanish prison.

"Well, sir, that brigantine came bowling along at such a pace that
within half an hour of the time when I noticed her to be edging down for
us she was within gun-shot; and no sooner was this the case than, yawing
broad off for a moment, she pitched a shot--an eighteen-pounder I took
it to be--across our fore-foot, as a polite hint to us to heave-to. But
I wasn't in the humour for heaving-to just then, so I hoisted my ensign
and kept all on as I was going.

"I expected that, seeing this, the brigantine would give us a sight of
her bunting, and open fire upon us in good earnest; but she didn't do
either. She just kept edging away, until in another five minutes she
was broad on our larboard quarter, running the same way that we were,
and creeping up with the evident intention of running us alongside.
Seeing this, I ordered Mr Thomson, my mate, to ram an extra shot down
upon the top of those we had already loaded our guns with, and to
depress the muzzles, so that we could fire down upon the brigantine's
low deck as she ranged up alongside. But I tell you, sir, that I didn't
half like the look of things; for by this time the craft was so close to
us that we saw down upon her decks quite distinctly, and she seemed to
be full of men--swarthy, greasy, black-bearded cut-throats, _every_ one
of them, if looks went for anything. In another minute or so she was
within biscuit-toss of us,--so close that we could hear the hissing
shear of her sharp stem through the water, and the moan of the wind in
the hollows of her canvas,--when up jumps a fellow upon her rail and
hailed us in what I took to be Spanish,--it wasn't French, I know,
because I can speak a little of that lingo,--at the same time pointing
to his gaff-end, up to which another ruffian at once began to hoist a
_black flag_.

"`So ho!' thinks I; `so it's _pirates_ we have to deal with, eh? Well,
that means neck or nothing, so here goes!' And with that I sings out to
the mate to throw open the ports--we'd kept them closed until now--and
let the rascals have it hot. No sooner said than done. Thomson gave
the word, the ports were thrown open, the nine-pounders run out, and the
next second four of our shot went smashing through the brigantine's
bulwarks, bowli