than ten feet long. Her hull was painted bright yellowish-brown, with a
broad white ribbon round it, and her bottom was painted white, with a
black stripe between it and the brown, but below the water-line the
white paint was foul with barnacles and sea grass, as we could see when
she rolled. She carried, by way of figurehead, the image of a female
saint, very elaborately painted and gilded, with a good deal of gilded
scroll-work round about it, and her stern and quarters were also
elaborately carved and gilded. Her topsides tumbled home enormously,
her width on deck being little more than half that at her water-line.
Surmounting her stern there was a great poop lantern, almost big enough
for a man to stand in. A rough painting of the Crucifixion adorned her
fore-topsail. She showed no colours; but she was Spanish, beyond a
doubt, and most probably, as I had at first surmised, a West Indiaman.

We manoeuvred the _Wasp_ in such a manner as to close with the stranger,
as nearly as possible without incurring the risk of being run into and
sunk by her in one of her wild sheers, and at the proper moment the
schooner was hove-to, the quarter-boat lowered, and with four hands in
her, armed with pistols and cutlasses, I jumped in and pulled away for
the other craft.

Carefully watching her movements, we contrived to get alongside and hook
on without very much difficulty; and then all hands of us swarmed up her
towering side and tumbled in on deck, with our drawn pistols in our
hands, for there was never any knowing what ghastly trick a pirate might
play, or what fiendish trap he might set--they were capable of anything
and everything--therefore it behoved us to be wary; but nothing
happened. There was not a soul on deck to interfere with us, or to
demand our business; and the first thing we did was to put the helm hard
over and lay the mainyard aback as she came to the wind. Then I
ascended to the poop and took a comprehensive glance round me.

The circumstance that thrust itself most obtrusively forward, demanding
immediate notice, was that the main hatchway was gaping wide-open, with
a tackle dangling down it from the main-stay, evidently for the purpose
of hoisting cargo out of the hold. All round the hatchway the deck was
littered with bales and cases of every description, some of them intact,
as they had come up out of the hold, while others had been ripped or
wrenched open and their contents scattered hither and