him. After a minute or two, she became
more composed, and eagerly inquired for Morton. Being informed that he
was on the forecastle and unhurt, and doing his duty like a brave man
and a good seaman, she expressed the most lively gratitude to Heaven,
and permitted Captain Williams to conduct her to the starboard side,
which was farthest from the enemy, and in great measure sheltered from
shot by the long-boat and by the spare spars, &c. stowed amidships.

By this time the crew of the Venganza, as is often the case with cowards
when driven to desperation, had become perfectly frantic, and also
mutinous. With furious execrations, they compelled Captain Pinto to make
a desperate attempt to board the American ship, and decide the action.
For this purpose the helm of the guarda-costa was put hard down, and she
immediately ran on board the Albatross, her bowsprit passing over that
ship's larboard gangway, and coming in contact with the fore part of her
mainmast, to which it was instantly lashed firmly by Mr. Walker, Jones,
and two or three of the nearest seamen. In this state she was exposed to
a murderous raking fire of grape and cannister shot, from such of the
Albatross's guns as could be brought to bear upon her. Notwithstanding
this, the Spaniards mustered in considerable force upon and about the
heel of the bowsprit and cat-heads, armed with pistols, knives, and
cutlasses. The Americans caught up their ten-foot boarding-pikes, and
presented an impenetrable hedge of steel points; but, although his crew
was fearfully thinned by a well directed discharge of canister-shot and
bags of musket-balls from the two midship guns of the Albatross, Captain
Pinto, at the head of about fifty men, the sole remnant of the original
eighty, persisted in his attempt to board; and five or six of the most
desperate actually "effected a lodgement," as militarists call it, in
the main shrouds, where they were instantaneously transfixed by the long
pikes of the Yankees, and fell shrieking into the water. At this moment
the doctor, who had hitherto been engaged in dressing the hurts of the
few wounded that thought proper to visit him in his temporary cockpit,
hearing the bustle, caught up his rifle, and hastened to the _other_
field of his usefulness.

"Here, doctor, doctor!" shouted old Jones as soon as he saw him, "here's
a chance for you! here's the Spanish skipper looking as savage as a
Yankee meat-axe--Gad! if you don't bear a hand, he'll c