Before the pirate came alongside the Avon, Captain Burton, suspecting her real character, had requested Julia to go below for a while, on pretence that he was going to tack ship, and she would be in the way, as women always are at sea, of the head-braces and main-boom. As the blunt old veteran never used much ceremony upon such occasions, she thought no more about it, but went below as she was bid. The firing, however, had terrified her exceedingly; and Miss Dorothy Hastings, who was sent out as a vidette as far as the upper step of the companion-ladder, came scampering back to the main body with intelligence that the stranger was a pirate, and immediately proceeded to enumerate the outrages that they might certainly calculate upon being subjected to. Almost sinking with terror, Julia listened with a scarce-beating heart to the increased trampling of feet on deck, the oaths of the pirates, and the report of a pistol; and when the murderer Longford, splashed with poor Burton's blood, suddenly appeared before her, she uttered a wild shriek, and sank senseless upon the cabin floor. But vengeance was on its way, and close at hand. While the pirates were busily engaged in murdering the unhappy crew of the Avon, which they did not accomplish without considerable loss to themselves, for the gallant fellows fought most desperately, the Hyperion hove in sight from behind Fernandez, following the track of her consort. Captain Allerton had heard the firing, and, suspecting all was not right, had "packed on" a press of sail, and soon came within short musket-shot of the schooner, whose hull received eight or ten round shot, but her sweeps and superiority of sailing on a wind, enabled her to escape. Allerton then steered for the brig, the disordered state of whose sails, her braces loose and yards flying about as the wind and sea pleased, convinced him that the pirates had been on board, and it was with a horrible dread of what might have taken place that he drew near. When within half a mile of the Avon, he saw a boat shove off from alongside, that a single look at his glass convinced him contained none of the brig's crew. Satisfied that they were part of the schooner's piratical crew, he sent all his men forward armed with muskets, with orders to give them a volley as soon as they came near enough to be sure of their mark. This was done, and the next moment the boat was sunk by the ship passing over her, and not one of the blood-stained wretches escaped. The Hyperion then shortened sail, and hove to.