rm was given. There was not sufficient way on the boat, the tide
being between flood and ebb, to bring us quite to the vessel, but
after a few more strokes I ordered the men to ship oars and seize
their arms, and we came under the brig's counter just in time to
escape a volley from the deck.

We swarmed up, half a 'dozen of us together, the men shouting and
cursing as Jack tars will, and met with a very warm reception. The
enemy was assembled in full force to beat us back, the watch below
having had time to tumble up, though to be sure they were half
dazed with sleep, and maybe drink. If they had been wide-awake I
will not answer for it that we should not have been repulsed; even
as it was, several of my crew were driven headlong back into the
boat and the sea. But the rest gained a footing on deck, and I
warrant you they kept it. We were at too close quarters to fire;
'twas a brief hand-to-hand encounter with cutlasses and clubbed
muskets, and what with the clashing of the weapons and the cries of
the men we made a great din and hurly burly.

But the enemy had lost their sole chance of success when they
failed to dislodge us before Joe's men arrived. 'Twas but a minute
before his boat came round the bows to the starboard side, and then
the crew swarmed up, with Joe at their head, and fell upon the rear
of our assailants. Thus hemmed in between our two parties the
buccaneers saw 'twas vain to contend longer. They flung down their
arms and cried (in many tongues) for quarter; and within five
minutes of our first setting foot on deck we had them securely
battened down below.

And now having accomplished, by fortune's favor, my first duty, I
resolved to make all speed after the fellows who had landed, hoping
fervently that the noise of our engagement had not reached their
ears and put them on their guard. There was hot work before us, I
well knew, if they numbered forty, as I had reason to believe. I
could not leave the brig wholly unguarded; yet I was loath to
diminish my own little company; in the end I decided to leave a
boatswain's mate in command of a party of five (three who had had a
ducking and two who had received slight hurts in the fight) and to
take Joe and the other eighteen hot-foot to Penolver.

I had left instructions with Fincham on our brig to sail into the
inlet in the morning to support us, and I told the boatswain's mate
to communicate with her as soon as she appeared. Thus I had no
anxiety about