Before the debris flung high in the air by the explosion had fallen, the pirate ship had sunk beneath the waves, taking our flying jibboom and part of the jibboom with her, while a heavy pall of smoke covered the place where a moment before she was lying like a wounded animal at bay. Now that all danger was past, the effects of the hardships I had undergone began to tell. I was faint, weary, and hungry; my clothes were in rags, my hands blistered, and my face blackened with powder. However, I made my way aft to report myself. There was no sign of Captain Poynings on the quarterdeck, so I went towards his cabin. As I passed underneath the break of the poop I came face to face with young Greville Drake. He stood stockstill for a moment, his eyes starting from his head in terror, till, realizing that I was flesh and blood, and not a phantom, he gasped: "Good heavens, ’tis Aubrey Wentworth back from the dead!" Seeing I was like to fall, he took me by the arm and led me below. "But I must report myself," I said. "Then report to me, Aubrey." "You? Why not the captain?" His answer was a suggestive jerk of his thumb towards the cockpit hatch, where the grim procession of mangled seamen still continued. "What!" I exclaimed. "Is Captain Poynings down?" "Yes; struck down at the last of the fight, and so are all the other officers. In me you see the senior unwounded officer, and as such I am in command of the _Gannet_." It was only too true. Our gallant captain had been hurled to the deck by a piece of falling timber from the doomed ship. The lieutenants were all either killed or dangerously wounded; the master, though he remained at his post during the engagement, had fallen through loss of blood; and the purser, who took his part in the fight as bravely as the rest, had had his left arm shattered above the elbow. With the crew the mortality had been fearful, while hardly forty men were uninjured. With an undermanned, severely damaged ship, it was a question whether we should ever reach port again. Only a continued spell of fine weather would guarantee our safety. Having washed, changed my ragged garments, and eaten a hearty meal, I went below to the cockpit. Here, lighted by the dismal glimmer of a few ship’s lanterns, a ghastly sight met my eyes, while a hot, fetid stench filled the gloomy region like a cloud. Stretched upon rough wooden trestles, or huddled in rows upon the bare deck, were dozens of human beings, some moaning, others shrieking and cursing in their agony. Our surgeon was about to operate upon a little powder-monkey, a lad of about fifteen years of age, who had received a ball in the shoulder. Lying by the lad’s side was his father, whose leg had just been removed, the pitch with which the stump had been smeared still smoking. In spite of the pain caused by the rough-and-ready surgery, the father grasped his son’s hand, encouraging and comforting the boy, as the surgeon probed for the bullet.