ladies and gentlemen, has ever afterwards
stuck to me. That's another joke, if you please ;
and I'm much obliged to Miss Belinda in the
corner for being good enough to laugh at it.

Well (I said "well" before, but it's a word
that helps a man on like), we sailed in the brig, and
shaped our course, first, for the Virgin Islands,
in the West Indies; and, after sighting them,
we made for the Leeward Islands next; and
then stood on due south, till the look-out at the
mast-head hailed the deck, and said he saw land.
That land was the coast of South America. We
had had a wonderful voyage so far. We had
lost none of our spars or sails, and not a man of
us had been harassed to death at the pumps. It
wasn't often The Good Intent made such a
voyage as that, I can tell you.

I was sent aloft to make sure about the land,
and I did make sure of it. When I reported the
same to the skipper, he went below, and had a
look at his letter of instructions and the chart.
When he came on deck again, he altered our
course a trifle to the eastward — I forget the
point on the compass, but that don't matter.
What I do remember is, that it was dark before
we closed in with the land. We kept the lead
going, and hove the brig to in from four to five
fathoms water, or it might be six—I can't say for
certain. I kept a sharp eye to the drift of the
vessel, none of us knowing how the currents ran
on that coast. We all wondered why the
skipper didn't anchor; but he said, No, he must
first show a light at the foretop-mast-head, and
wait for an answering light on shore. We did
wait, and nothing of the sort appeared. It was
starlight and calm. What little wind there was
came in puffs off the land. I suppose we waited,
drifting a little to the westward, as I made it
out, best part of an hour before anything
happened—and then, instead of seeing the light on
shore, we saw a boat coming towards us, rowed
by two men only.

We hailed them, and they answered, "Friends!"
and hailed us by our name. They came on
board. One of them was an Irishman, and the
other was a coffee-coloured native pilot, who
jabbered a little English. The Irishman handed
a note to our skipper, who showed it to me. It
informed us that the part of the coast we were
off then, was not over safe for discharging our
cargo, seeing that spies of the enemy (that is to
say, of the old government) had been taken and
shot in the neighbourhood the day before. We
might trust the brig to the native pilot; and he
had his instructions to take us to another part
of the coast. The note was signed by the
proper parties; so we let the Irishman go back
alone in the boat, and allowed the pilot to
exercise his lawful authority over the brig. He kept
us stretching off from the land till noon the next
day—his instructions, seemingly, ordering him
to keep us well out of sight of the shore. We
only altered our course, in the afternoon, so as
to close in with the land again a little before
midnight.

This same pilot was about as ill-looking a
vagabond as ever I saw; a skinny, cowardly,
quarrelsome mongrel, who swore at the men, in
the vilest broken English, till they were every
one of them ready to pitch him overboard.
The skipper kept them quiet, and I kept them
quiet, for the pilot being given us by our
instructions, we were bound to make the best
of him. Near nightfall, however, with the best
will in the world to avoid it, I was unlucky
enough to quarrel with him. He wanted to go
below with his pipe, and I stopped him, of
course, because it was contrary to orders. Upon
that, he tried to hustle by me, and I put him
away with my hand. I never meant to push
him down ; but, somehow, I did. Ho picked
himself up as quick as lightning, and pulled out
his knife. I snatched it out of his hand, slapped
his murderous face for him, and threw his
weapon overboard. He gave me one ugly look,
and walked aft. I didn't think much of the
look then ; but I remembered it a little too well
afterwards.

We were close in with the land again, just as
the wind failed us, between eleven and twelve
that night; and dropped our anchor by the pilot's
directions. It was pitch dark, and a dead,
airless calm. The skipper was on deck with two
of our best men for watch. The rest were
below, except the pilot, who coiled himself up,
more like a snake than a man, on the forecastle.
It was not my watch till four in the morning.
But I didn't like the look of the night, or the
pilot, or the state of things generally, and I
shook myself down on deck to get my nap there,
and be ready for anything at a moment's notice.
The last I remember was the skipper whispering
to me that he didn't like the look of things
either, and that he would go below and consult
his instructions again. That is the last I
remember, before the slow, heavy, regular roll of
the old brig on the ground swell rocked me off
to sleep.

I was woke, ladies and gentlemen, by a scuffle
on the forecastle, and a gag in my mouth.
There was a man on my breast and a man on my
legs; and I was bound hand and foot in half a
minute. The brig was in the hands of the
Spaniards. They were swarming all over her.
I heard six heavy splashes in the water, one
after another — I saw the captain stabbed to the
heart as he came running up the companion—
and I heard a seventh splash in the water.
Except myself, every soul of us on board had been
murdered and thrown into the sea. Why I was
left, I couldn't think, till I saw the pilot stoop
over me with a lantern, and look, to make sure
of who I was. There was a devilish grin on his
face, and he nodded his head at me, as much as
to say, You were the man who hustled me down
and slapped my face, and I mean to play the
game of cat and mouse with you in return
for it!

I could neither move nor speak; but I could
see the Spaniards take off the main hatch and
rig the purchases for getting up the cargo. A
quarter of an hour afterwards, I heard the
sweeps of a schooner, or other small vessel, in
the water. The strange craft was laid alongside