ied for the mercy they themselves had refused, and
the "Halcyon" passed on her way. Half-a-dozen Malays had escaped, as,
clutching at the ropes and gear which hung from the jib-boom broken with
the shock, they scrambled on board, to meet the cutlasses of the enraged
crew. Their bodies were hove overboard, and then not a vestige remained
of the dreaded pirate, the scourge of the Indian sea.

Leaping from the quarter-deck, Wyzinski hauled at the hatchway, shouting
down it to his friend below. He was just in time, for but another
moment and the brig, disembarrassed of her enemy, would have been blown
to atoms; as it was, a wild cheer burst from the crew when five minutes
later Hughes was hoisted on deck, his pistol black with the loose powder
into which it had been thrust, and his face pale with excitement.

"We are in the hands of Providence, dear lady," said the captain, as the
whole party sought the cabin. "With a half-dismasted ship, a heavy gale
in prospect, and a lee shore, there is much to be done; but the great
peril is over. You can clear the deck, Mr Lowe, of all the boxes and
bales we roused up. I don't think the pirates will trouble us any more.
Take the foresail off her, and send the carpenter aft."

The captain had his hands full on deck. Scudding before the wind is
ever a dangerous thing, because the waves following so fast are apt to
break on board, if the vessel is not propelled through the water with a
speed greater than that of the following sea.

In the cabin, that cabin which they had never thought to see again, the
whole party knelt, and led by Wyzinski, returned thanks to Heaven, for
their lives thus almost miraculously spared. The missionary prayed long
and eloquently, for it seemed to him that his had been the act which had
resulted in sending the whole crew of that terrible vessel to the
bottom. True, life, and more than life, was at stake; true, also, that
the schooner, with her low, black hull and white canvas, had been a
scourge in those seas, still the loud despairing shriek which rose on
the air, as the brig's bows buried themselves in the frail timbers of
the lightly-constructed vessel, rang in his ears, and though an act of
necessity, it was none the less a terrible one. A fearful crisis in the
lives of all had passed by, and with the sense of relief came that of
deep gratitude to the hand which had turned aside the terrible fate so
lately hanging over them. The missionary, the