t it will not do to take any risks; he is evidently a
desperate character, or was before you pinked him, so slip up on deck
and get a length of line--a bit off one of the topgallant-braces will do
if you can't find anything better--to make him fast with. And call a
couple of hands to come below and carry him on deck; it is scarcely safe
to leave such a fellow alone in the cabin, even when securely bound."

I hobbled on deck as well as my burnt foot--which by this time was
excruciatingly painful--would permit, and finding a suitable bit of
line, and securing the assistance of two of our lads, the slave-captain,
as he eventually proved to be, was speedily bound hand and foot,
conveyed on deck, and propped up in a reclining position against the
bulwarks, well aft out of the way, in such a position as seemed least
likely to encourage the bleeding of his wound.

Meanwhile, Ryan, upon leaving the skipper, had rushed forward and hailed
the fugitive schooner, in his richest Dublin accent, to heave-to, or he
would sink her. To this command, however, whether understood or not, no
attention was paid; and before our people, groping about in the thick
darkness among the dead and wounded, could lay their hands upon a single
cartridge, they had the mortification of seeing her vanish round a bend
of the creek on her way seaward, the lieutenant consoling himself with
the assurance that she would infallibly be snapped up by the
_Barracouta_, whose slender crew would be certain to be on the alert all
through the night. When the skipper and I arrived on deck, after
securing our prisoner, Ryan and a few of our lads were busily employed
ramming home a charge in the long eighteen mounted upon the brig's
forecastle, a cartridge and shot for which they had stumbled across in
their search. The second luff at once began to relate, with many
comical expressions of righteous indignation, the particulars of the
schooner's escape; but he had scarcely got well into his narrative when
the faint _screep_ of a block-sheave from to windward warned us that
another of our slippery neighbours was about to hazard a like
experiment. Without waiting for orders, or thinking of what I was
doing, forgetting even my injured foot in the excitement of the moment,
I sprang upon the rail and hailed in Spanish--

"Hola there, keep all fast on board those schooners, or we will riddle
you with grape! And light a lantern each of you and hoist it to your
main-mast-h