l on the top of his head, and did not require our assistance, so he
was pitched overboard. The next was the man shot dead by Toby, so his
body was treated in the same way. A third still breathed, but was
bleeding profusely from a deep wound in his shoulder, and a shot through
his side. His case seemed hopeless, but we bound up his hurts and
placed him against the bulwarks, under the shade of the sail. Two more
we came to were dead, and two badly wounded. When we had done what we
could for them, and placed them with their companions, we saw a fourth
man, whom we supposed to be dead, right forward. When we lifted him up
his limbs did not seem very stiff, nor could we see any wound about him.
Billy Wise was assisting us.

"Why, sirs," he exclaimed, "the chap has got a big knife in his clutch,
and those eyes of his ain't dead men's eyes, but maybe it will be just
as well to pitch him overboard; he can't do no harm then, anyhow."

Billy was right, for as he spoke I saw the supposed dead man's eyes
twinkle. Calling another of our people to our assistance, we snatched
the knife out of the man's hand, and then lifting him up we seemed as if
about to heave him overboard. Indeed, Billy thought that was our
object. The Frenchman, however, did not approve of this, and gave
strong evidence that he was alive, by struggling violently, and uttering
with extraordinary volubility a variety of expletives on the matter.
When we had frightened him a little, we lashed his arms behind him and
placed him with the rest of the prisoners on deck. There could be
little doubt that he had shammed dead, and kept a knife ready, with the
hopes of releasing his companions while we were off our guard, and
retaking the vessel. For this we could not blame him, so we treated him
with the same care as the other prisoners--only, perhaps, we kept rather
a sharper watch over him, lest he might attempt to play us some other
trick.

There were some casks of water on the deck, so we served some of it out
to ourselves and our prisoners on deck alike. Most of the Frenchmen
looked as if they were grateful, but the sulky countenances of some of
them did not alter. However, that made no difference in our behaviour,
as Grey and I agreed it must have been terribly annoying to their
feelings to find themselves thus hopelessly prisoners.

We had done thus much, when we heard thumping and shouts from below.
This was what we expected, but we had hoped to have