greater interest in their proceedings
than I did.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

I was allowed to remain on deck, under charge of a sentry, but was in no
other way treated as a prisoner. Half-an-hour elapsed, during which the
boats were probably looking for the pirate vessel, without a shot being
heard. It was a time of the most intense anxiety. At length, as if to
make amends for the previous silence, the roar of big guns and musketry
was heard reverberating in quick succession among the rocks. One
fancied that one could distinguish as each boat came up to the contest,
and the schooner fired at her in return. The wreaths of smoke could be
perceived in the atmosphere, rising above the trees. Once there was a
cessation; and it appeared that the boats were driven back. One thing
was certain, the pirates had not attempted to stop them at the narrow
passage, as they might have done; or, if they had, they had successfully
passed it.

Five minutes elapsed--they seemed an hour. Then again the hubbub
recommenced, with greater fury than before. So excited did many of the
men, and even the officers, become, that I almost thought they would
leap into the water, and try to swim to shore, to join in the combat. I
fancied that I could even hear the cries and shrieks of the combatants--
that I could see the whole scene before me, through the trees; the boats
at the mouth of the bight, firing away at the schooner, their officers
cheering the men on; the pirates, stripped to the waist, working the
guns of the schooner, some on board, and others on either point on
shore, with small-armed men scattered in every direction around. The
prolonged fight made me feel very doubtful of the result of the contest.
There was a pause, and then a loud, fearful explosion, and the masts
and spars and fragments of the pirate schooner could be seen rising in
the air. She had blown up; but still it might be questioned who were
the victors.

There was another interval of the most intense anxiety. In vain we
waited for the reappearance of the boats, till the _Neptune's_ people
began to fear that their brave shipmates had been all destroyed. There
was only one small boat, the dinghy, remaining on board. The master,
the only gun-room officer left besides the surgeon and purser,
volunteered to go in and look for them. I was on the very point of
offering to accompany him as pilot, when I remembered that I was
supposed to know nothing of the place.