in their hands and cutlasses ready for use. Grey lay
down first. He slept so soundly that I did not like to call him. The
night was dark, but the prisoners were quiet, and there was but little
wind; even that little had died away. I did not altogether like the
look of the weather. The heat was very great, and though it was calm
then, I knew that it was not far off the hurricane season, and I thought
if we were to be caught in a hurricane how greatly our difficulties
would be increased, even if we were not lost altogether. After a time
Grey started up of his own accord. The instant I lay down on the after
part of the deck I was asleep. It appeared to me that I had scarcely
closed my eyes, when I was aroused by shouts and cries. I started up,
fully persuaded that the Frenchmen were loose and upon us. The sounds
appeared to come from the hold. As I ran to the main hatchway I heard a
noise of scuffling and struggling, and a voice shouting "Oh, Master
Merry, Master Grey, the ghosteses have got hold of me, the ghosteses
have got hold of me." Looking into the hold, I saw, by the light of a
lanthorn, Billy Wise struggling with two Frenchmen, while, forward, Grey
and one of our men were, I discovered rather by my ears than by sight,
engaged with another of the prisoners, who had apparently worked himself
loose. Ned Bambrick had started to his feet at the moment that I did.
Together we leaped down below. We were not an instant too soon. Billy
was almost overpowered, and as there were some cutlasses at hand, the
Frenchmen might have armed themselves and killed us while we were
asleep. Bambrick knocked one over with a blow of his fist, and the
other was easily managed. Where they had come from we could not tell.
They were none of those who had appeared on deck, and must have been
concealed very cleverly when we sent down to search below. It was a
lesson to Grey and me ever after to go and look ourselves when a search
of importance was to be made. While Bambrick and Billy held the men
down, I ran for some rope, with which we made them fast pretty tightly
to some stanchions between decks. Grey and his companion had in the
meantime re-secured the prisoner who had managed nearly to release
himself, and we then made a more careful search than before through
every part of the vessel. We had pretty well satisfied ourselves that
no one else was stowed away below, when a loud cry, and finding the
vessel suddenly heeling