It was now dark, yet not so black but that we could see our course, and besides there were the lights of the town to serve our helmsman as guide posts. That the town was mightily astir was demonstrated by a shot that was belched out upon us by one of the great pieces mounted on the bulwark of Saint Philip. But it did us no harm, unless some slight defacement of our figurehead that I observed next day was the work of this shot. Taking warning, Raoul steered the vessel hard over against the mainland, though I deplored the loss of time we suffered thereby. Indeed, but for this circuit which we made, and which, being a prudent measure, I could not gainsay, verily I believe we should have run out into the open sea without any let or hindrance whatsoever. But it happed that as we again bore westward, I perceived the black shape of a galley move from its anchorage in our wake, and presently after other of the same sort. This gave me no manner of apprehension, for we were fully manned, and our men, rowing for their very lives, were not like to be outdone by the hapless slaves in our pursuers, even though they were urged by the whip. We were in another case when, as we came abreast of the point at the northern extremity of the bay of Caleta, a galley shot forth by the skirts of the rocks and made great speed to sea, not directly towards us, but taking a slantwise course with intent to head us off, as seamen say. It was a hard matter in the darkness to make a nice reckoning, yet I thought we should outstrip even this the most threatening of our pursuers. Being ware of a steady fair breeze off the land, I deemed it mere foolishness to neglect it; accordingly I bade Stubbs choose some few men among the oarsmen that were mariners, and send them on deck to bend the sails. This proceeding caused us to lose way somewhat, the sails having been cast aboard without any care, and so needing time to order them rightly. And when I saw that the captain of the galley in chase of us had foregone me, and being now come into the wind had already gotten his sails ahoist, I was not a little dismayed. Bethinking me of Don Ygnacio and Captain Badillo, hitherto mere idle passengers and burdensome, I resolved to put them to the oars, not without a secret relish in the thought that they would now taste of the toil they had heretofore inflicted upon the slaves. With my own hands therefore I cast Don Ygnacio loose, and bundled both him and the lesser captain to the lower part of the vessel, giving them into the charge of my good Stubbs, with a strait injunction that he should urge them to a decent industry. I did not see with my own eyes how they accommodated themselves to their task, because I returned to the deck to look to the sails and also to keep a watch on the enemy. But Stubbs told me afterwards that he plied the whip right merrily on the backs of those two proud Spaniards, and so wrought them to a just activity, to the