m certain details of her build and equipment I set
her down as being at least fifty years old; but she was still apparently
quite sound as to hull, spars, and rigging, and had been evidently well
taken care of. She mounted eight twelve-pounders upon her main deck,
four in each battery, but they were all secured, and I could see nothing
to suggest that she had recently fought an action with another ship. On
the contrary, all the evidence was in favour of the assumption that her
people had been taken completely by surprise--most probably during the
night; that she had been boarded by pirates, Malays or Chinese, all
hands ruthlessly massacred, and the ship then plundered and set on fire.
These last assumptions were based upon the facts that her longboat--
which from the deck of the _Mercury_ had appeared to be stowed over the
main hatch--had been shifted over to the port side of the deck, the
hatches removed, and a quantity of her cargo broken out and hoisted up
on deck, where it now lay, a confused jumble of merchandise and of torn
bales and shattered packages, piled high on the starboard side of the
hatchway. A yawning, fire-blackened cavity in the poop, where the
mizenmast had stood, showed that she had been on fire in the cabin; but
that the fire had somehow become extinguished before it had had time to
get a firm hold upon the hull. The condition of the bodies of the
murdered crew seemed to indicate that the tragedy must have occurred
some time within the preceding forty-eight hours. Apparently she had
been under all plain sail when the thing happened.

Descending again to the main deck, and calling upon the two seamen from
the _Mercury_ to follow me, I next entered the poop cabin, which I found
to be arranged after the manner that was very usual at that time.
Access to the main cabin was gained by a narrow passage some nine feet
in length, on the port side of which, and next the ship's side, was a
stateroom which was easily identifiable as that belonging to the chief
mate, while on the starboard side of the passage was the steward's
pantry. At the inner end of the passage was a doorway, the door being
open and hooked back against the bulkhead; and passing through this
doorway one found oneself in the main cabin, an apartment some thirty
feet long, with three staterooms on each side of it. Abaft that again
was the sail-room, well-stocked with bolts of canvas of varying degrees
of coarseness and several sails, ma