, there was not on board even a rusty firelock or sabre.

* * * * *

How wondrously calm was all nature that night! Not a breath of air, or
a ripple on the water! The sky was brilliant with stars, as if the
firmament were strewn with silver dust. The full moon, with its
glowing disc, hung some fifteen or twenty degrees above the horizon.
The intense stillness weighed upon my tired limbs and eyes, while I
leaned with my elbows on the taffrail, watching the roll of the vessel
as she swung lazily from side to side on the long and weary swell.
Every body but the watch had retired, and I, too, went to my
state-room in hope of burying my sorrows in sleep. But the calm night
near the land had so completely filled my berth with annoying insects,
that I was obliged to decamp and take refuge in the stay-sail netting,
where, wrapped in the cool canvas, I was at rest in quicker time than
I have taken to tell it.

Notwithstanding my nervous apprehension, a sleep more like the torpor
of lethargy than natural slumber, fell on me at once. I neither
stirred nor heard any thing till near two o'clock, when a piercing
shriek from the deck aroused me. The moon had set, but there was light
enough to show the decks abaft filled with men, though I could
distinguish neither their persons nor movements. Cries of appeal, and
moans as of wounded or dying, constantly reached me. I roused myself
as well and quickly as I could from the oppression of my deathlike
sleep, and tried to shake off the nightmare. The effort assured me
that it was reality and not a dream! In an instant, that presence of
mind which has seldom deserted me, suggested escape. I seized the
gasket, and dropping by aid of it as softly as I could in the water,
struck out for shore. It was time. My plunge into the sea,
notwithstanding its caution, had made some noise, and a rough voice
called in Spanish to return or I would be shot.

When I began to go to sea, I took pains to become a good swimmer, and
my acquired skill served well on this occasion. As soon as the voice
ceased from the deck, I lay still on the water until I saw a flash
from the bow of the _galliot_, to which I immediately made a
complaisant bow by diving deeply. This operation I repeated several
times, till I was lost in the distant darkness; nor can I pride myself
much on my address in escaping the musket balls, as I have since had
my own aim similarly eluded by many a harmless duc