ay went the beautiful craft, like a hound
released from the leash, in pursuit of the vanished Indiaman, leaving us
to our own devices.

Now we had time to look about us and note the effects of the
brigantine's disastrous encounter with the transport. Truly these were
terrible enough, in all conscience; for although as soon as the
uninjured portion of the crew had made sail upon the vessel, in their
unavailing effort to escape, they had employed themselves in separating
the wounded from the dead and carrying the former below to the cockpit--
where the ship's surgeon was then busily engaged in attending to their
hurts--there had not been time enough for them to complete their task,
and the slain and wounded still cumbered the decks to such an extent
that when, upon the departure of the frigate, I gave the order to bear
up and stand after the convoy, our lads could scarcely get at the sheets
and braces without trampling some of them under foot. They were
everywhere--between the guns, about the hatchways, and especially on the
forecastle and in the wake of the port fore-rigging, where they had
grouped themselves thickly preparatory to boarding, and where they lay
literally in heaps, while the bulwarks were splashed with blood from end
to end of the ship, and the lee scuppers were still running with it.
She had ranged up on the starboard side of the transport, consequently
the dead and wounded lay thickest on the port side of the brigantine;
but a few of the crew had apparently run round to shelter themselves
under the lee of the longboat--which was stowed on the main hatch--after
receiving the first or second volley, and the closeness and deadly
character of those volleys was borne witness to by the fact that the
boat was literally riddled with bullet-holes, the missiles having
evidently passed through and through her and probably laid low every one
of those that we found on her starboard side. And if further evidence
were needed it was to be found in the fact that the starboard bulwarks--
almost as high and solid as those of a man-o'-war--were pitted with
bullets, "a long way closer together than the raisins in a sailor's
plum-duff," as Henderson caustically remarked.

Our first duty was of course to aid the wounded who had not already been
attended to; therefore, while Simmons and three hands busied themselves
aloft in clearing away the wreck of the fore-topgallant-mast, the
remainder of the prize-crew set about their