, and often pointing the guns
with his own hands.

Many rifle-shots were fired at him, but in vain. He seemed to bear a
charmed life.

"Can none of you pick him off?" said the captain of the gun-boat.

Twenty rifles replied to the words, and the man's red jacket was seen to
be torn in many places, but himself remained unhurt!

At last the pirate-guns were silenced in two of the prows, only the
chief's maintaining an obstinate fire. This vessel would have been much
sooner silenced, no doubt, but for the ferocity of Pungarin. When his
men, driven at last by the deadly fire of the assailants, forsook a gun
and sought refuge behind the matting, the pirate-chief would promptly
step forward and serve the gun himself, until very shame sometimes
forced his men to return.

At last all the guns were disabled but one, and that one Pungarin
continued to serve, uninjured, amid a perfect storm of shot.

"The fellow has got the lives of twenty cats," growled the captain, as
he turned to give directions to the steersman, which brought the
gun-boat still closer to the enemy. The effect of a well-delivered
volley at this shorter range was to cut the fastenings of the three
prows, thus permitting them to separate.

This was precisely what was desired, the captain having resolved to run
the pirates down one at a time, as he had done before. He would not
board them, because their superior numbers and desperate ferocity would
have insured a hand-to-hand conflict, which, even at the best, might
have cost the lives of many of his men. The instant, therefore, that
the prows were cut adrift, he gave the order to back astern. At the
same moment Pungarin was heard to give an order to his men, which
resulted in the oars being got out and manned by the surviving pirates
and slaves, who rowed for the land as fast as possible. Their escape in
this way, however, the captain knew to be impossible, for they were now
fully twenty-five miles from shore. He therefore went about his work
leisurely.

Backing a considerable distance, so as to enable his little war-horse to
get up full-speed, he took careful aim as he charged.

It was interesting to watch the swart faces and glaring eyeballs of
those on board the first prow, as the gun-boat bore down on them. Some
glared from hate, others obviously from fear, and all seemed a little
uncertain as to what was about to be done. This uncertainty was only
dispelled when the prow was struck amid