e, the shouts of the
combatants, and the shrieks of the wounded and dying; struggling with
the unhappy negroes who, driven almost frantic with the unwonted sights
and sounds around them, seemed quite unable to comprehend our
intentions, and resisted to the utmost our well-meant endeavours to pass
them over the ship's side into the water.

In the midst of all this tumult and confusion we were suddenly
confronted by an additional horror--Williams, badly wounded in the head
by a splinter, staggering on deck, closely followed by his men, with the
news that the schooner was rapidly sinking, and that it was impossible
to free any more of the blacks.

I glanced down the hatchway. Merciful Heaven! shall I ever forget the
sight which met my eyes in that brief glimpse! The intelligence was
only too literally true. By the dim light of a horn lantern which
Williams had suspended from the beams I could see the black water
welling and bubbling rapidly up from the shot-holes below, and the
wretched negroes, still chained below, surrounded by the mangled corpses
of their companions and already immersed to their chins, with their
heads thrown as far back as possible so as to keep their mouths and
nostrils free until the last possible moment, their faces contorted and
their eyes protruding from their sockets with mortal fear.

One of the unhappy creatures was a woman--a mother. Actuated by that
loving and devoted instinct which constrains all animals to seek the
safety of their helpless offspring before their own, she had raised her
infant in her arms as high as possible above the surface of the bubbling
water, and had fixed her dying gaze yearningly upon the little
creature's face with an expression of despairing love which it was truly
pitiful to see. I could not bear it. The mother was lost--chained as
she was to the submerged deck, nothing could then save her--but the
child might still be preserved. I sprang down the hatchway and,
splashing through the rapidly-rising water, seized the child, and, as
gently as possible, tried to disengage it from the mother's grasp. The
woman turned her eyes upon me, looked steadfastly at me for a moment as
though she would read my very soul, and then--possibly because she saw
the flood of compassion which was welling up from my heart into my
eyes--pressed her child's lips once rapidly and convulsively to her own
already submerged mouth, loosed her grasp upon its body, and with a wild
shrie