e did, and presently, believing that he had us
completely in his power, he bore up and ran down toward us, with the
evident intention of boarding.

"Mr Simpson," said I, "that fellow looks very much as though he
intended to lay us aboard. That ought to suit us a great deal better
than playing at long bowls, so please have both broadsides and the long
gun double-shotted, and we will give him everything we can as he ranges
up alongside, and then board him in the smoke, instead of waiting for
him to board us."

"An excellent plan, sir, I think," answered Simpson. "Boardin' and
bein' boarded are two very different things; and although them chaps may
be ready enough to follow their skipper on to our decks, it'll take a
good deal of the fight out of them if they finds that we're beforehand
with 'em, and that they've got to defend their own ship instead of
attackin' us. I'll go and see everything ready to give 'em a warm
reception when they comes alongside."

We were not long kept in suspense, for, to do the pirates justice, they
came on to the attack with every symptom of perfect fearlessness, and we
had only just sufficient time wherein to make our preparations when,
taking a broad sheer, the brig rounded-to and shot alongside us. At the
moment when she was within about a fathom of us, her bulwarks lined with
swarthy, unkempt-looking desperadoes, holding themselves in readiness to
fling themselves in upon our decks, I gave the word to fire, and the
whole double-shotted broadside--with a charge of canister on top of it,
which Simpson had quietly ordered to be rammed home on top of the round
shot--went crashing into her, making a very pretty "general average"
among her crew, and among her spars and rigging. The crew of boarders
seemed to have been swept out of existence, and so severely wounded were
her masts that the shock of her collision with the schooner, a moment
later, sent both of them over the side, fortunately into the sea instead
of across our decks; and there she lay, a sheer hulk, secured to us by
the grappling irons which our people had promptly hove, and quite unable
to escape.

"Hurrah, lads," I shouted, "we have her now; she cannot escape us!
Boarders, follow me!" And away we all went, helter-skelter, over our
own bulwarks and those of the brig into the thick cloud of smoke that
hung over the brig's decks, completely obscuring them and everything
upon them.

I quite expected to find that our final b