bt as to their design, for even as I watched I saw a sudden
puff of white smoke go up from her side and hang motionlessly in the
still air, whilst a second or two later sounded the dull and heavy boom
of the distant cannon, and a round shot came skipping across the water
from wave to wave, though too far away and with too poor aim to do any
damage from that distance, which could not have been less than two
miles.

"What does that mean, captain?" said Mistress Pamela, who stood with the
other passengers observing the bark from the poop-deck above.

"A salute, madam," said I, and so shut my glass and went into my cabin,
where Mr. Langely presently joined me at my request, and where we talked
over this very ugly piece of business at our leisure.

V.

In those hot latitudes, such as Madagascar, the darkness cometh very
sudden after sunset, and with no long twilights such as we have in
England, so that within half an hour after the pirate had saluted us
with a round shot, as told above, it had passed from daylight to
night-time, and there being no moon until about four o'clock in the
morning, it was very dark, with an infinite quantity of stars shining
most beautifully in the sky.

I ordered my gig to be made ready, and went aboard the _Greenwich_,
where I found Captain Kirby suffering under the utmost consternation of
spirits. He took me straight to his cabin, where, when we were set down,
he fell to blaming himself most severely for not having clapped chains
upon the fourteen pirates whom he had found on the island upon his
arrival at that place, and who, it was very plain to see, had given such
information to their fellows as had brought a great number of them down
upon us.

So soon as I was able I checked him in his self-reproaches. "Come, come,
Captain Kirby," says I, "'tis no time for vain regrets, but rather to be
thinking to protect ourselves and those things that we have in trust
from these bloody wretches, who would strip us of all."

So, after a while, he quieted in some measure, and the captain of the
Ostender coming aboard about this time, we made shift betwixt us to
settle some sort of a plan for mutual protection.

According to my suggestions it was determined to get out warps upon the
port side of all three crafts, which now lay heading towards the south,
because of the set of the current. By means of these warps the vessels
might be brought to lie athwart the channel, which was so narrow at