The Rover's Secret: A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba

by Harry Collingwood

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

  THE CONQUEST OF THE CONCONIL LAGOONS.

  A very short time, some three minutes or so, sufficed to carry usthrough the channel into the lagoon, which once reached, away we wentfor the back of the island, under the friendly cover of which we hopedto reach undiscovered within about a cable's length of our foe. Half adozen strokes of the oars sufficed to carry our little flotilla acrossthe narrow strip of water, during the traversing of which there was apossibility of our premature discovery; and whilst we were dashingacross this open space, I made the best possible use of my eyes to takein the position of affairs. I was enabled to note the situations of thethree feluccas, which were lying at anchor about a mile distant, and wecould see men moving about the decks of each, but there was no movementor sound on board either that we could discern indicative of ourpresence being observed. I was earnestly hoping and praying that theeyes and the whole attention of the pirates would be turned in theopposite direction, from whence they doubtless expected us to make ourappearance, and we subsequently learned that such was actually the case.

  The moment we were fairly under cover of the island I ordered the men toease up on their oars, in order that they might husband their strengthas much as possible for the final dash and the ensuing struggle, which Icould see would be a severe one, and waving Courtenay to rangealongside, the next few minutes were devoted to a final settlement ofthe plan of attack. I had observed that the two small feluccas werelying inside the larger one, all three of the craft being nearly in astraight line; and it was arranged that our three boats should, onemerging from the shelter of the island, make a dash at the nearest, asif about to board her, Courtenay making for the larboard side of thevessel, whilst Fidd and I made a feint of attacking on the starboardside. The bulk of the crew we considered would naturally, seeing this,muster on the starboard side to oppose the strongest division of theattacking force, thus leaving the larboard side but weakly defended, andso rendering it a tolerably easy matter for Courtenay and his boat'screw to gain a footing upon her deck. Having thus given the gigs whataid we could, the launch and quarter-boat were to pass on and make forthe large felucca, leaving Courtenay to gain possession of the firstvessel attacked, to secure her crew, and then to further act accordingto his own discretion.

  Shortly after the completion of these arrangements we found that we weregetting into close proximity with our foes, the masts of the feluccasopening out simultaneously from behind a high bluff, and showing over asloping spur or point of the island between them and ourselves. Weaccordingly got the boats into line, the men braced themselves for adash, and in another minute or two the boats were unmasked by roundingthe point. Even then we managed to get a length or two nearer thevessels before we were discovered, for I had given the strictestinjunctions to the men not to cheer until we heard from the feluccas,but the roll of the oars in their rowlocks at length betrayed us, as wasannounced by a shout of unmistakable dismay from the nearest felucca,immediately succeeded by a tremendous amount of confusion and bustle onboard. Then, indeed, our lads _did_ cheer once, with an enthusiasmwhich must have been eminently disconcerting to the enemy, after whichthey laid down to their oars in a style which, I must confess, fairlyastonished me. We went through the water like race-horses over theground, dashing alongside the first felucca in so short a time that hercrew were unable to train their guns upon us, and so greeted us onlywith a confused volley of musketry which hurt nobody. As we swervedaway from her, and headed for the large craft a couple of cable's-lengths distant, I caught sight of Courtenay's head and shoulders overthe bulwarks, showing that he, gallant fellow, had already gained afooting on her deck; and a few seconds later, amid the clash of steeland the popping of pistols, another British cheer told us that the gigswere all hard at it, and evidently gaining the advantage.

  The crews of the other two feluccas now began to haul on their springs,in order that their broadsides might be brought to bear upon us, but wewere too quick for them both as it happened; the second small craftcould not be got round smartly enough to do us any harm, and as for thebig one, in their hurry to annihilate us, her crew fired too high, andtheir whole broadside whizzed harmlessly over our heads. We repliedeffectively with our six-pounder, which was loaded with round and grape,and pointed so high that we were enabled to fire within three fathoms ofthe felucca's side, and before the smoke had cleared away we werealongside, Fidd tackling them on the larboard side, whilst we in thelaunch attacked on the starboard.

  It was well for us that we had had the forethought to bring the gun withus, for the deck of the vessel we were now attacking was crowded withmen, so crowded, indeed, that the bulwarks were closely lined on eachside to oppose us, whilst others were seen behind the first line allready to support their comrades, and but for the confusion created bythe timely discharge of our piece, not one of us could possibly havelived to reach her deck. As it was, I slightly altered my plans at thelast moment, for seeing that the pirates had mustered strongly in thewaist, evidently expecting us to board there, I gave orders for thelaunch to be allowed to shoot along the vessel's side until we reachedher bows, where there were fewer men to oppose us. It proved to be ahappy inspiration, for whilst we were busy forcing our way in over thefelucca's low rail, several cold shot were hove over her side amidships,evidently with the intention of sinking the boat, but being where wewere, they of course all missed and splashed harmlessly into the water.Poor Fidd was less fortunate than ourselves, his boat being stove theinstant she ran alongside, and for a few minutes he and his crew were ina pretty pickle, hanging on to the bulwarks and channels, and whereverthey could gain a hold, vainly striving to force their way inboard.Indeed, for that matter, none of us were over-comfortably situated, ourparty being outnumbered in the proportion of fully four to one, with thefurther disadvantage that we were _outside_ the bulwarks, whilst ouropponents were _inside_, and with a firm spacious deck to stand upon.It was perceptible at a glance that the case was one wherein a promptand bold dash was necessary, for unless we could succeed in establishinga footing at the first rush, the chances were that we should failaltogether. I therefore hastily called to my men to reserve theirpistol-fire until they were sure of their mark, and, placing my cutlassbetween my teeth and whipping a pistol from my belt, sprang for thebulwarks the instant we touched. A great brawny fellow, whose ferociousvisage I well-remembered having seen among those of the drunken partywho boarded the _Pinta_, instantly stepped forward with an upraised axeto oppose me, but I was fortunate enough to send a bullet crashingthrough his brain ere the weapon descended, and as he staggered and fellbackwards on the deck I leapt in over the rail and gained the spot whichhe had occupied. A dozen opponents at once closed in upon me, but mysecond pistol accounted for one; another lost his weapon and his righthand together by the first stroke of my cutlass; and by that time mostof the launches had gained a footing on the deck, so that we began tomake our presence felt. About this time, too, Fidd, with three or fourof his best men, were on the right side of the bulwarks; and in anotherminute the entire party, or at least all those who were not killed ordesperately wounded, were on the felucca's deck, and settling down totheir work in grim earnest. And now ensued a hand-to-hand encounter ofas desperate and sanguinary a character as it has ever been my fortuneto witness, our tars on the one hand realising that if we werevanquished very few of us would ever be allowed to escape alive from thelagoon, whilst the pirates, of course, knew only too well that they werefighting with halters round their necks. For fully a quarter of an hourwas the hellish conflict waged upon the deck of the felucca, our ladsnow gaining a yard or two, and anon being driven back by sheer force ofnumbers until our backs were pressed against the rail, and furtherretreat, unless over the side, became impossible. And all the while theair was full of the gleam and clash of steel, the crack of pistol andmusket, the tramp of feet, the heavy breathing of the combatants, withtheir muttered execrations and ejaculations, the sharp cries of thenewly wounded, and the groans and mo
ans of those who were already down,and whose lives were being trampled out of them in the press and stressof the strife. And, oh! the sickening odour of blood which tainted thehot, still atmosphere, and assailed our nostrils with every gaspingbreath we drew! The deck planking was slippery with the sanguinaryflood, the bulwarks were splashed with it, our hands, faces, andclothing were bespattered with it, the scuppers were flowing with it,for a time it almost seemed to be _raining_ blood! Faugh! the verymemory of that dreadful scene is sickening; let us say no more about itbut pass on. At length our lads--that is to say the launches andquarter-boat's crews--managed to get the pirates fairly jammed inbetween them, and then the very numbers of our foes were in our favour,for, huddled together as they were in the waist, not half of them couldfind room enough to strike an effective blow. Moreover, it becamepretty evident that they had had enough of it, and were beginning tolose heart; instead of pressing eagerly to the front to meet us, as atfirst, each man now seemed anxious only to retire into the centre of thecrowd, leaving to somebody else the glory of carrying on the defence.Seeing this, I rallied the launches, and with them made a final anddesperate charge into the thickest of the enemy, when the rout of thelatter at once became complete, some of them flinging away their weaponsand leaping overboard, whilst others tore up the hatches and sprangheadlong into the hold. Example of this kind is always contagious; ifone gives way, another does the same, and is immediately imitated by athird, and so it was in the present case; the panic instantly spread,and before we well knew what was happening the two boats' crews hadjoined forces, our enemies had vanished, and victory was ours.

  The cheer raised by the victors was immediately responded to from thesecond of the small feluccas, which we now had time to notice had, likethe first, been boarded and carried by Courtenay and his gallant littleband. My dashing shipmate had, it seemed, on capturing his first prize,promptly clapped her crew under hatches, after which he immediately cuther cables, loosed her canvas, and ran her on board her consort, bywhich piece of skilful generalship he was enabled to board his enemyupon equal terms, instead of having to clamber in over her bulwarks fromthe boat. He was just securing his second batch of prisoners,preparatory to bearing down to lend us a helping hand, when our cheer ofvictory announced to him that his assistance was no longer necessary.

  We now set to work to clap the whole of our prisoners in irons, a taskin the execution of which I anticipated a considerable amountdifficulty; but, fortunately for us, they seemed to have had quite asmuch fighting as they cared for, and therefore submitted with atolerably good grace--or, perhaps, I ought rather to say with the apathyof hardened men fully conscious of the fact that further resistance wasutterly unavailing. This task completed, and the whole of the capturedpirates transferred to the hold of the big felucca--round the openhatchway of which four of her brass nine-pounders were ranged, loadedwith langridge, within view of our prisoners, and their muzzlesdepressed so that they pointed right down into the interior of thehold--our next business was to land a party for the purpose of securingwhatever booty could be found, and afterwards to destroy the variousbuildings and stores of the depot. As yet we had detected no sign oflife anywhere on shore; the pirates seemed, one and all, to have betakenthemselves to their craft, apparently confident of their ability withthem to achieve an easy victory over us in the--to them--unlikely eventof our forcing a passage through the various obstructions which they hadprepared for us at different parts of the channel; but notwithstandingthis apparent absence of foes on shore I deemed it best to send a verystrong party, fully armed of course, under Courtenay's command. Theentire force of the expedition, with the exception of six hands which Iretained on board our biggest prize to keep an eye on the prisoners, wasaccordingly sent away in the launch--now, unhappily, in consequence ofour numerous casualties, of ample capacity to accommodate the mencomposing it--and ten minutes later we who were left behind had thesatisfaction of witnessing its unopposed landing. The launch, with twoboat-keepers in her, was shoved off a few fathoms from the beach; andthe remainder of the party, led by Courtenay, headed at once for thebuildings which crowned the highest spot in the little island.

  They reached their destination unmolested, broke up into parties whichentered the various buildings, and, after an interval of some twentyminutes, reappeared, each man loaded with evidently as much as he couldcarry. The spoil--or whatever it was--was piled upon the sandy beach,close to the water's edge; and a second journey to the buildings thenfollowed. Three of these journeys in all were made, and at theconclusion of the third the launch was hailed to run in and commencetaking in cargo. That the articles shipped were tolerably weighty wasevident from the fact that the boat repeatedly needed to be pushedfurther and still further astern to keep her afloat, and from therapidity with which she settled down in the water. It was no very longjob to transfer the goods from beach to boat; after which the men whohad been doing the work scrambled on board and took their places, thewater reaching above their waists as they waded off to her. A shrillsignal whistle was then given from the boat; a lookout on the summit ofthe hill answered it with a wave of the hand and then disappearedthrough the door of the principal building. A pause of a minute or twofollowed, when a little party of four, Courtenay being one of them,emerged from the various buildings and set off down the hill. By thetime that they reached the launch thin wreaths of light bluish smokewere seen issuing from the buildings they had just left; and by the timethe launch had arrived once more alongside the felucca the smoke hadassumed a darker hue, had increased in volume and density, and was seento be streaked here and there with flickering tongues of flame.

  "Well," said I, as Courtenay clambered in over the low bulwarks of thefelucca, "you met with no resistance, I was glad to see, and you appearto have taken pretty effectual measures for the destruction of thehornets' nest yonder. Did you see no sign of anybody about there?"

  "No sign whatever," was the reply. "We could see all over the placefrom the top of the hill, and I do not believe there is a livingcreature of any description on the island. If there is, it will be somuch the worse for them half an hour hence, about which time somethingvery like an earthquake will take place, for I have lighted a slow matchcommunicating with a magazine containing about three tons of powder inbulk, to say nothing of perhaps a couple of thousand cartridges. Thebuildings are all effectually fired, as you may see; and we have broughtoff a boat-load of plunder which, from its weight, I judge must consistlargely of specie, the doubloons, doubtless, of which our friend Careradiscoursed so eloquently. Now what is the next thing to be done?"

  "Why," said I, "I think you had better take the wounded into the launch,and proceed with her, just as she is, as quickly as possible to theschooner. Turn the wounded over to Sanderson, stow your booty in thehold, hoist in the launch, and then make sail for the mouth of thelagoon, where I hope to fall in with you in the felucca. I shall onlybe able to spare you six hands to pull the boat, but that will notgreatly matter, as I think you are not likely to be interfered withduring your passage to the schooner; and I do not wish to start short-handed, as we may possibly have a little more fighting to do on our waydown the lagoon. Now, hurry away as fast as you can, please; those twosmall craft which you so gallantly took are not worth the trouble ofcarrying away; I shall therefore fire them and then get under wayforthwith."

  The painful task of moving the wounded was then undertaken; and it wasmost distressing to see how severe our loss had been. Out of a total ofthirty-six, all told, which had left the schooner in the boats, fiveonly had escaped uninjured--Courtenay and I had both been hurt, thoughnothing to speak of--nine were killed, and thirteen so severely woundedas to be unfit for duty.

  Having at length seen the launch fairly under weigh for the schooner, Isent Fidd away with four hands in the gig to fire our two smallerprizes--a task which was soon accomplished, as the vessels were lyingalongside each other. The felucca's canvas was then loosed, her anchorwas roused up to her bows, and we got under
weigh.

  We had not proceeded further than a couple of miles down the lagoonbefore--as I had quite expected--we came upon a battery constructed upona small projecting spit; which battery, had we been passing _up_ insteadof _down_ the lagoon, could have raked us fore and aft for at leasttwenty minutes, and peppered us with grape for another ten, without ourbeing able to fire a single shot in return. This battery was a hastilyconstructed affair of sods, and it mounted only one gun, but that gunwas a long eighteen; and had we removed the chain barrier which formedthe first obstruction, and persevered in our original attempt to pass upthe lagoon, there can be no doubt that this gun would have destroyed theschooner and all hands. The people who manned the battery could notpossibly have failed to hear the firing that had been going on at thehead of the lagoon; but they seemed to have failed to comprehend itsfull significance, and, therefore, to have been unable to make up theirminds to slue the gun round and point it in the opposite direction.This state of indecision on their part not only enabled us to approachthem with impunity but also to take them in flank; and a couple ofrounds of grape from the felucca so astonished and demoralised them thatthose who were not killed or disabled by our fire incontinentlyabandoned the battery and sought safety in flight to the deepestrecesses of the bush which lined the shore.

  Fidd, with a dozen hands, then jumped into the schooner's gig, which hadbeen towing astern of the felucca, and shoved off with the object ofdestroying the battery; and we now had another specimen of the abilitywith which the defences of the lagoon had been planned; for, onapproaching the battery, it was found to be bordered on three sides by abank of ooze, some ten fathoms broad, which ooze proved to be of such aconsistency that, whilst it was much too liquid and too deep to permitof a man wading through it, it was at the same time so thick as torender the passage of a boat through it almost impossible. It took thecrew of the gig more than twenty minutes to force the boat through thissemi-liquid mass, they exerting themselves to their utmost, meanwhile;so that, had the schooner, in passing up the lagoon, managed to survivethe fire of the gun, any attempt to storm the battery with the aid ofboats must have resulted in irretrievable disaster. However, Fidd andhis blue-jackets managed to reach _terra firma_ eventually; and it wasthen the work of only a few minutes to capsize the gun and all itsappurtenances over the edge of the bank into the ooze, where the wholewas instantly swallowed up.

  Meanwhile, the felucca, slowly drifting down the lagoon, encountered--ata distance of some fifty fathoms below the battery--another obstacle, inthe shape of a second chain, similar to the former, stretched across thechannel, which rendered our further progress impossible until thebarrier had been removed. This--there being nobody to interfere withour actions--was soon done; and we then passed on, meeting with nofurther obstruction until we came to the first chain. This, like theone previously passed, was removed by casting off both ends and allowingthe whole affair to sink to the bottom of the lagoon--where it wasdoubtless instantly swallowed up by the mud--and in less than half anhour afterwards we found ourselves clear of the terrible lagoonsaltogether and fairly in Santa Clara Bay, where we fell in with the_Foam_, hove to and waiting for us.

  It was by this time within an hour of sunset; so, as I was anxious toget into open water before nightfall, it was arranged that we should goout to sea through the Manou Channel and Cardenas Bay, as we had beforedone in the _Pinta_; and the passage was accomplished without mishap;Diana Cay being passed on our larboard hand, and the vessels' headsbeing laid north by east just as the first stars began to twinkle outfrom the darkening blue above us.

  Shortly after this it fell calm; and advantage was taken of the briefperiod of inactivity preceding the springing up of the land-breeze toapportion the few effective hands remaining to us as fairly as possiblebetween the schooner and her prize, the latter being, of course, putunder Courtenay's command, with Pottle, the quarter-master, aslieutenants, gun-room officers, and midshipmen all rolled into one.Courtenay's crew, with their kits and hammocks, were transferred to thefelucca in good time to fill on her and stand on in the wake of the_Foam_ with the first of the land-breeze; and then, with Pottle intemporary charge of the prize, and Tompion keeping a lookout on the deckof the schooner, Courtenay and I, more firmly knit together than ever bythe trying events of the day we had just passed through, sat down totalk matters quietly over together while we discussed the verycreditable dinner which the steward had provided for us.

  On the following morning the melancholy task of burying our dead wasperformed, both vessels being hove to, with their colours' hoisted half-mast high, during the ceremony; and I think it was a very great reliefto all hands when, the poor fellows--ten in all, including O'Flaherty--having been consigned with all solemnity to their last resting-placebeneath the heaving billow, we were able to fill away again and resumeour course to the northward and eastward.

  Noon that day found us three miles to windward of the Anguilas, situateat the south-east extremity of the Cay Sal Bank; and an hour later thelookout on board the _Foam_ reported a sail, apparently a largeschooner, on our weather-beam, running up the Old Channel under easycanvas. The breeze was then blowing rather fresh at about east bynorth, the _Foam_ thrashing along with her lee covering-board awash, herroyal stowed, and her topmasts whipping about like a couple of fishing-rods; whilst the felucca was about three miles ahead of us and broad onour weather bow, going two feet to our one, and weathering on us atevery plunge. We were consequently sailing at right angles to thestranger, and rather drawing away from the line of her course thanotherwise; yet such was the speed with which she came along that in halfan hour she was hull-up from our deck. It now became apparent that shewas manifesting a certain amount of curiosity as to who and what wemight happen to be; for instead of gradually revealing her starboardbroadside to us, as she would have done had she held on her originalcourse, she was gradually hauling her wind by keeping her bowspritpointed straight for us. I was at first disposed to regard her asEnglish, but the enormous spread of her lower and topsail-yardsconvinced me, upon her nearer approach, that I was mistaken. That samepeculiarity of rig was a strong argument against the assumption of herbeing French; and, considerably puzzled what to make of her, I sent formy glass, in order to get a clearer view of her. By the time that theinstrument had been brought on deck and put into my hand she was withinfour miles of us; and a single glance through the telescope sufficed totell me who and what she was. Yes, there could be no doubt about it;the craft running down so rapidly toward us was none other thanMerlani's schooner, the identical craft Courtenay and I had seen hovedown on the occasion of our visit to the Conconil lagoons.

  Here was a pretty kettle of fish, indeed! The fellow's decks would, ofcourse, be crowded with men, whilst I had not enough hands to man asingle broadside, supposing even that I sent every available man to theguns, leaving the canvas to take care of itself! And as for Courtenay,he was even worse off than myself. I was puzzled what to do for thebest; for I felt that a single false move at such a juncture, and in thepresence of such an enemy, might involve us in absolute ruin. A hurriedconsultation with the boatswain and gunner, however, decided me to put abold face upon the affair and "brazen it out;" in accordance with whichresolution our ensign and pennant were hoisted, the topgallant-sail wasclewed up and furled, and the gaff-topsail hauled down and stowed.Courtenay very smartly followed suit in the matter of showing hiscolours, tacking at the same time and edging down toward us. Thisevidently shook the nerves of our unwelcome neighbour somewhat; heseemed to think two to one rather long odds, for he immediately boreaway far enough to show us his gaff-end clear of his topsail, when he atonce ran up the stars and stripes. With this display of bunting we, ofcourse, feigned to be perfectly satisfied, and each vessel held on hercourse, Merlani, doubtless, chuckling to think how smartly he hadhoodwinked us, whilst we were only too pleased at having got out of thedifficulty so easily. On Courtenay rounding to under our stern itappeared that he, too, believed the strange craft to be Merlani'sscho
oner; like me, he had been temporarily thrown off his balance; andlike me, also, he had just come to the conclusion that a bold front wasthe proper game to play, when the sight of our colours and ourshortening of sail gave him his cue, and he had forthwith put down hishelm and come round to take his part in the game of braggadocio.

  This incident of our rencontre with Merlani (for we subsequently learnedthat it actually _was_ he) was the last occurrence worthy of recordwhich befell us on our somewhat eventful cruise; for after losing sightof the suspected schooner we never fell in with another sail of anydescription until we entered Port Royal harbour, where we arrived, aftera pleasant but somewhat tardy passage, exactly one week after our fightin the Conconil lagoons. I may as well here state, parenthetically,that, under Sanderson's skilful hands and assiduous care, all thewounded, myself included, did marvellously well; and though some of thepoor fellows, on arrival, had to be removed to the hospital, every oneof them eventually recovered. As for me, contrary to all expectationthe excitement and exertion to which I had been unavoidably exposed didme no harm whatever; and on the morning of our arrival I was able todispense with the cumbersome and unsightly swathing of turban-likebandages which I had up to then been compelled to wear, a liberalapplication of sticking-plaster being all that I thenceforward requireduntil my wound was completely healed.

  Our black pilot berthed us, at my request, close under the guns of theflag-ship; and our anchor had scarcely taken a fair grip of the groundbefore I found myself seated in the stern-sheets of my gig, with mycarefully written report in my hand, _en route_ for an interview withthe admiral I found the old gentleman on the quarter-deck of the _Mars_,up and down which he was stumping in evidently no very amiable mood.Something or other, I forget what, had put his temper out of joint; andhe was expressing himself with a freedom, vigour, and fluency oflanguage which I have seldom heard equalled, certainly never surpassed.He was inclined to be ironical, too; for on my presenting myself beforehim he brought up abruptly, and, surveying me fiercely for a moment,exclaimed:

  "Well, young gentleman, pray, who may you be, and what do you want, if Imay venture so far as to make the inquiry?"

  "I am Mr Lascelles, sir, of the schooner _Foam_, just arrived; and Ihave come on board to make my report," I replied.

  "Oh!" said he, somewhat less sternly, "you are Mr Lascelles, of theschooner _Foam_, are you? And pray, sir, where is Mr O'Flaherty, thatyou should find it necessary to discharge his functions? He is notwounded, I hope?"

  "I regret to say, sir, that he is dead," said I.

  "Dead!" he repeated; "tut, tut; that is bad news, indeed. Here, comeinto my cabin with me, and sit down; you look as pale as a ghost, andhave been wounded yourself, if that fag-end of sticking-plaster which Isee projecting beneath the rim of your hat has any significance. There,take a chair, help yourself to a glass of wine, and make yourselfcomfortable," he continued, as we reached his cool, roomy cabin. "Giveme your report, and let me have a short verbal account of how you got onand what has befallen you. You brought in a prize with you, I see, anda very fine craft of her class she seems to be. There, now, fire awaywith your yarn."

  I refreshed myself with a sip of the old gentleman's very excellentMadeira, and then proceeded to give him an outline of the principalevents of our cruise, my narrative being frequently broken in upon byhim with questions of a decidedly searching character in reference tosuch matters as seemed to him to require further elucidation.

  At the close of my narrative the old gentleman rose from his seat andshook me warmly by the hand, exclaiming:

  "Well done, my dear boy; well done! You have behaved admirably, andwith a discretion far beyond your years. Had I known as much at theoutset as I do now I need not have sent Mr O'Flaherty at all. Poorfellow! he was a good officer and a brave man, none braver, but he wasrash. He had seen a great deal of boat service, and I thought--well,well! never mind. It is a pity he gave the alarm to those feluccas soprematurely, though. I am very pleased with you, young gentleman, andwith your shipmate too--very pleased indeed. You got out of two badscrapes very cleverly, to say nothing of the way in which you afterwardsweathered upon the arch-pirate himself. Ha! ha! that was neatly done,upon my word. You did quite right, my boy, not to turn your stern tohim. Never turn tail to an enemy, even though he be big enough to eatyou, until the very last moment, nor then, if you think you have theghost of a chance of thrashing him. Which does not mean, however, that,when retreat is necessary, you are to stay until it is too late and beeaten. I should have liked to see the fellow chuckling to himself as hethought how cleverly he had hoodwinked you. Poor chap! he littledreamed that you were walking off with all his hard-earned savingssnugly stowed away beneath your cabin-floor. And it shall not be sovery long, please God, before we will have him also and his crew safe inirons. Well, well! Now, be off aboard your hooker again, and see allready for turning over the prisoners and the plunder; and, harkye,youngster, come and dine with me at the Penn to-night. Seven, sharp!and give my compliments to your shipmate, and say I shall be glad to seehim too."