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ion of yielding my ship to any such vermin without making a fight for it; and my own lads were quite of the same mind as myself, not liking the idea of being locked up for years in a French or a Spanish prison. "Well, sir, that brigantine came bowling along at such a pace that within half an hour of the time when I noticed her to be edging down for us she was within gun-shot; and no sooner was this the case than, yawing broad off for a moment, she pitched a shot--an eighteen-pounder I took it to be--across our fore-foot, as a polite hint to us to heave-to. But I wasn't in the humour for heaving-to just then, so I hoisted my ensign and kept all on as I was going. "I expected that, seeing this, the brigantine would give us a sight of her bunting, and open fire upon us in good earnest; but she didn't do either. She just kept edging away, until in another five minutes she was broad on our larboard quarter, running the same way that we were, and creeping up with the evident intention of running us alongside. Seeing this, I ordered Mr Thomson, my mate, to ram an extra shot down upon the top of those we had already loaded our guns with, and to depress the muzzles, so that we could fire down upon the brigantine's low deck as she ranged up alongside. But I tell you, sir, that I didn't half like the look of things; for by this time the craft was so close to us that we saw down upon her decks quite distinctly, and she seemed to be full of men--swarthy, greasy, black-bearded cut-throats, _every_ one of them, if looks went for anything. In another minute or so she was within biscuit-toss of us,--so close that we could hear the hissing shear of her sharp stem through the water, and the moan of the wind in the hollows of her canvas,--when up jumps a fellow upon her rail and hailed us in what I took to be Spanish,--it wasn't French, I know, because I can speak a little of that lingo,--at the same time pointing to his gaff-end, up to which another ruffian at once began to hoist a _black flag_. "`So ho!' thinks I; `so it's _pirates_ we have to deal with, eh? Well, that means neck or nothing, so here goes!' And with that I sings out to the mate to throw open the ports--we'd kept them closed until now--and let the rascals have it hot. No sooner said than done. Thomson gave the word, the ports were thrown open, the nine-pounders run out, and the next second four of our shot went smashing through the brigantine's bulwarks, bowli
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