.

"Fire!" shouted the captain, while a blue light he had just ignited
threw a pale unearthly glare over the ship's tafferel, and showed us
our new and unexpected enemy It was the pirate's boat, which she had
dropped during the partial obscurity I spoke of, intending to board
us a-head herself, while the boat's crew attacked us astern. It was
fortunate that we happened to hear them--three minutes more and nothing
could have saved us. There was a set of the most ferocious-looking
desperadoes I had ever seen, armed to the teeth; and the boat (a large
one) was crowded with them. Deadly was the effect of our fire. Four or
five of the men at the oars were tumbled over on their faces; but their
places were instantly supplied by others, who, with loud yells for
revenge, bent desperately to their oars. In a few minutes the boat shot
up under the mizen-chains, while the bullets that were raining down upon
them from above only rendered them more desperate. The living trampled
upon the dying and the dead, in their eagerness to board; and, in a
thick swarm, the blood-thirsty scoundrels came yelling over the
bulwarks. A sharp and well-directed fire staggered them for a moment,
and sent several of them to their last account. We now threw aside the
muskets, for cutlasses and tomahawks. Hand to hand, foot to foot,
desperate and deadly was the struggle.

"Down with them, my lads!" shouted Rose. "Hew the blood-thirsty villains
to pieces. No quarter! no quarter!--show them such mercy as they would
show you!"

Short and bloody was the conflict; several of the pirates had been
killed, the deck was slippery with blood, and the rest were keeping
their ground with difficulty. I had a long and severe hand-to-hand fight
with one of them. We had each received desperate wounds, when his foot
slipped on the bloody deck. I gave him a severe stroke on the head with
a tomahawk, and, after a deadly struggle on the gangway, tumbled him
backwards overboard. The moon shone bright out at the moment, and fell
full upon his face. Merciful heaven!--my brain reeled, I staggered
against a gun, and became insensible--that face, Mr. Stewart, haunts my
dreams to this hour with its ghastly, despairing expression. It was the
long-lost Henry's--I was my brother's murderer! (Here the poor fellow
hid his face in his hands, and groaned with agony. I pitied him from my
heart; but I knew that sorrow such as his "will not be comforted" in the
moment of its strength; so