"

The dash of oars in the water instantly followed, the whereabouts of the
boat being at once made manifest by the flash of the port-fire upon the
wet oar-blades, and upon the foaming ripple which gathered under the
bows of the boat; and by the time that half a dozen strokes had been
pulled the boat herself--a very large craft, apparently, and crowded
with men--became dimly visible like a faint luminous mist driving along
the surface of the inky water.

"Steady now, men," I cried. "Take your time, and aim straight. Say
when you are ready."

"All ready with the midship gun!"

"All ready aft!"

"Ready for'ard!"

The replies were uttered almost simultaneously, and I instantly gave the
word "_Fire_!"

The three guns rang out as one, the triple flash not only illuminating
vividly, for a fraction of a second, the boat against which they were
discharged, but also revealing for the same brief space of time a second
and similar boat a few yards in the rear of the first. Fatally sped
those three terrible charges of grape. The guns had been aimed with
such deadly precision, and discharged so exactly at the right moment,
that the leading boat was literally torn to pieces; so utterly
destroyed, indeed, that she seemed to have vanished instantly from the
surface of the lagoon, leaving in her stead only a few fragments of
shattered planking, and a broad patch of phosphorescent foam in the
midst of which floated her late crew, a ghastly array of _corpses_, save
where, here and there, some wretch, less fortunate than his comrades,
still writhed and splashed feebly as the life reluctantly left his torn
and mutilated body. The spectacle of this catastrophe, so suddenly and
completely wrought, this instant destruction of some thirty or forty
human beings, was absolutely appalling; and its effect was intensified
by the extraordinary circumstance that not a single shriek, or groan, or
outcry of any description, escaped the victims of our murderous fire.
So dreadful was the sight that, for perhaps half a minute, the entire
crew of the schooner, fore and aft, stood motionless and dumb, petrified
with horror, staring with dilated eyeballs at the spot where the bodies,
now all motionless, lay faintly defined in the last rays of the almost
burnt-out port-fire.

But there was no time to be lost; another boat was lurking out there
somewhere, in the impenetrable gloom; so, rallying my faculties by a
powerful effort, I managed to exc