Thus ended the fight; and I presume that the two craft soon passed out of sight of each other and did not again meet, during that voyage at least, for there was no more firing from _La Mouette_ while I remained aboard her. But what transpired during the rest of the voyage I was destined to know very little about, for scarcely had the firing ceased when Captain Tourville, thin, weak, and emaciated, crept up on the poop. He had a pistol in his hand, and no sooner did his gaze fall on me than he levelled the weapon at me and fired it point-blank. Fortunately for me, the man's hand was so unsteady that the ball flew wide; but the report brought the mates and half-a-dozen men to us with a rush to see what was the matter. "Take that young scoundrel," exclaimed Tourville, pointing at me with a finger that trembled with rage as much as with weakness, "put his hands and his feet in irons, heave him down on the ballast, and leave him there until I give you further instructions." CHAPTER FIFTEEN. IN THE HANDS OF SAVAGES. The order was promptly obeyed; and in a few minutes I found myself, heavily ironed, in the pitchy darkness of the lower hold, squatted disconsolately upon the bed of shingle which constituted the ballast of the vessel. And what a situation for a young fellow of less than twenty years of age to be in! The ship of which I had been placed in command lost-- foundered in mid-ocean, and, only too probably, all hands lost with her. Our fate would never be known; it would be concluded that one of the mysterious disasters that so frequently befall the seaman had overtaken us; we should be given up as lost; and there would be an end of us all, so far as our fellow-men were concerned. For whatever hopes I might once have entertained of escaping from this accursed ship, I had none now. That Tourville would not be satisfied with anything short of taking my life, I was convinced; and very soon I began to feel that I did not care how soon he sated his vengeance; for confined below in the heat and darkness of the stifling hold, with no resting-place but the hard shingle for my aching body, breathing an atmosphere poisonous with the odour of bilge-water, with only three flinty ship-biscuits, alive with weevils, and a half-pint of putrid water per day upon which to sustain life, and beset by ferocious rats who disputed with me the possession of my scanty fare, I soon became so miserably ill that death quickly lost all its terrors, and I felt that I could welcome it as a release from my sufferings.