trange vessel swarmed with soldiers. At the same
moment, twenty concealed ports flew open and twenty heavy guns were run
out.

Our captain gave the word, "Fire!" as he leaped on the deck and rushed
to the wheel. The word must have been given at the same moment on board
the chase, for both broadsides burst simultaneously from the vessels'
sides with a deafening crash that sounded ten times louder and more
terrible than the loudest thunder I ever heard. We were so near that
the combined volumes of smoke completely blinded and almost suffocated
me. I fancied, for a moment, that our powder-magazine had blown up.

The thunder of the broadsides was followed by the most appalling shrieks
I ever heard, and by the ceaseless rattle of musketry as the soldiers
opened on us with deadly precision. Through the smoke I saw men falling
around me, and the decks were immediately covered with blood, while
bullets and splinters of wood whistled round my head like hail.

I was stunned. I felt like one in a horrid dream. Gradually the smoke
cleared away, and then I saw that our captain had put down the helm and
our vessel was sheering off to leeward under full sail. The rapidity
with which everything was done quite took away my breath. Before we
were out of gun-shot the decks had been cleared, the dead thrown into
the sea, the wounded carried below, and the decks washed with buckets of
water.

Just then I thought of Jack, and looked round in haste. He was not
there! I rushed below! he was not in his hammock. In an agony of
anxiety I went down into the horrible den of blood where our surgeon was
attending to the wounded. Here, amid groaning and dying men, I found my
friend stretched in a cot with a blanket over him, his handsome face was
very pale, and his eyes were closed when I approached. Going down on my
knees beside him, while my heart fluttered with an inexpressible feeling
of dread, I whispered his name.

He opened his large eyes slowly, and a sweet sad smile lit up his face
for one moment, as he took me by the hand.

"O Jack! Jack, my friend--my brother--are you wounded?" I asked.

"Yes," he replied, in a faint voice; "I'm badly hurt, I fear."

"Has the doctor dressed your wound?"

"He finished the--the--operation just before you came down."

"Operation!" I whispered, while a feeling of deadly sickness came over
me. "Where--what--" I could not go further.

Poor Jack knew what I wished to ask. He gently l