un up
on board the barque and the brig simultaneously.

The pirates in possession were completely paralysed by the turn events
had taken; they had evidently been under the impression that the
_Aurora_, and not the _Virginie_ had proved victorious; and now that
they found themselves under the guns of both ships their mistake was
past rectification.

Accordingly, at George's order, they backed the main-yard and hove-to
the ship, upon which a strong party, armed to the teeth, proceeded on
board and took possession.

The ship proved to be the _Vulcan_, of and from Liverpool, bound to
Kingston with a valuable general cargo and several passengers. She was
a noble ship, being of nearly a thousand tons register, and a regular
clipper.

On boarding her, George found the state of affairs pretty much what it
had been on board the _Aurora_ after her capture by these same pirates,
her crew and the male passengers being discovered scattered about the
deck, lashed helplessly neck and heels together, or chained to
ring-bolts in the deck and bulwarks, whilst the pirates had taken
possession of the cabin and had held a regular saturnalia there, in the
progress of which the unfortunate lady passengers had been subjected to
the vilest outrages, and one poor little child had been cruelly murdered
before its distracted mother's face. The captain and the chief mate of
the ship were both found in the cabin in a dying condition, they having
been mutilated in a most cruel and horrible manner in an ineffectual
effort to wring from them the secret of the hiding-place of a large
amount of specie which the pirates had somehow ascertained was on board.
A tall and burly negro, the identical one who had acted as lieutenant
to the Spaniard in charge of the _Aurora_ on the occasion of her first
capture, was at the head of the gang, and had been the instigator and
chief perpetrator in the many outrages which had followed the capture of
the _Vulcan_.

No time was lost in freeing the passengers and crew from their
exceedingly unpleasant situation; and this done, the pirates, ten in
number, heavily ironed, were transferred to the _Virginie_ and stowed
carefully away below. The _Vulcan_ then proceeded on her voyage, in
charge of her second mate, by whom George forwarded a letter to the
admiral at Jamaica, informing him of the capture of the now notorious
_Aurora_.

George now felt that, with two ships and so many desperate men to look
after, he ha