o the water;--there was a dying shriek--a
convulsive struggle--and all I could discern was the arms
dangling over the side of the canoe, and the ragged stump pouring
out the blood like a torrent.

There was an imploring look in the innocent and youthful face of
Mr. Merry that would have appealed to the heart of any one but a
Pirate. As he arose on his knees, in the posture of a penitent,
supplicating for mercy even on the verge of eternity, he was
prostrated with a blow of the cutlass, his bowels gushing out of
the wound. They then pierced him through the breast in several
places with a long pointed knife, and cut his throat from ear to
ear.

The Captain's dog, repulsed in his repeated attempts to rescue
his master, sat whining beside his lifeless body, looking up to
these blood hounds in human shape, as if to tell them, that even
brutal cruelty would be glutted with the blood of two innocent,
unoffending victims.

Bridge and the Cook, they pierced through the breast, as they had
Merry, in several places with their knives, and then split their
heads open with their cutlasses.--Their dying groans had scarcely
ceased, and I was improving the moment of life that yet remained,
when I heard the blow behind me--the blood and brains that flew
all over my head and shoulders, warned me that poor old Russel
had shared the fate of the others; and as I turned my head to
catch the eye of my executioner, I saw the head of Russel severed
in two nearly its whole length, with a single blow of the
cutlass, and even without the decency of removing his cap. At the
sound of the blow, Manuel, who sat before me, leaped over board,
and four of the Pirates were in full chase after him. In what
manner he loosed his hands, I am unable to say--his escape, I
shall hereafter explain. My eyes were fixed on my supposed
executioner, watching the signal of my death--he was on my right
and partly behind me--my head, which was covered with a firm
tarpaulin hat, was turned in a direction that brought my
shoulders fore and aft the canoe--the blow came--it divided the
top of my hat, struck my head so severely as to stun me, and
glanced off my left shoulder, taking the skin and some flesh in
its way, and divided my pinion cord on the arm. I was so severely
stunned that I did not leap from the canoe, but pitched over the
left side, and was just arising from the water, not yet my length
from her, as a Pirate threw his knife which struck me, but did
not r