uring the brief struggle poor Ryan had been badly wounded
in a hand-to-hand fight with the skipper of the barque, whom he had at
once singled out and engaged. It afterwards appeared that as soon as
matters seemed to be going badly for the barque's people her skipper had
attempted to slip out of the fight and slink below; but Ryan, suspecting
some sinister object in this projected movement, had stuck to the man so
closely, getting between him and the companion, that his object, if he
had one, was frustrated; and in his desperation he had struck a blow at
Ryan that clove the unfortunate Irishman's skull open, only to be
impaled himself upon our dashing captain's sword at the same moment.

Ryan had thus fulfilled his purpose of putting the slaver's skipper
_hors de combat_, but at serious cost to himself; the poor fellow was so
desperately hurt that he could do nothing but murmur his gratification
at finding that I had emerged from the fray unhurt, and an injunction to
me to take the command, when he fainted, and I at once had him carefully
conveyed to his own cabin on board the schooner, where Armstrong the
surgeon immediately took him in hand.

Our capture was named the _San Sebastian_, and hailed from Havana; she
had four hundred and twenty-one slaves on board, out of a total of four
hundred and seventy-six that she had brought out of the Gaboon river
only ten days before; she was a very fine handsome vessel of three
hundred and forty-five tons measurement; and our recent experiences with
her had proved that she sailed like a witch. We secured our prisoners;
conveyed our own wounded--amounting to nine in all--on board the
schooner; and then, having put Pierrepoint and a prize-crew on board the
barque, both vessels made sail in company for Sierra Leone, where we
arrived safely, after a passage of exactly a week, and where we were
rejoined by Gowland and the prize-crew of the _Conquistador_, which
vessel had arrived six days before us.

Here, as the repairing of our damages and the provision of a new
foremast for the schooner threatened us with a considerable amount of
delay, Ryan went ashore to the hospital, where he made pretty fair
progress toward recovery, although the improvement was not so marked or
rapid as it had been on board the schooner at sea; the intense heat, he
complained, was against him, and his first inquiry every morning when I
went to see him was, "When did I think the schooner would be ready for
s