"The other boat didn't know what had happened, and came up agin; but leaving two of the blacks to chop down any of the fellows in the water who might try to climb aboard, the other ten of us stood up and fought 'em fair. Our blood was up now, and our darkies fought like demons. The pirates soon found they had the worst of it, and would have got apart from us if they could; but we jumped into thar boat and fought them thar, and they soon jumped over and made for the bank. Directly it was over they began to fire agin from the shore, and we jumped back into shelter agin in our own boat and manned the four oars agin. We fastened the painter of the boat on to our stern, and towed her behind us, and in another half an hour were out in the stream. It was a toughish fight, I can tell you, while it lasted; two of the blacks and one of my mates had been hit by thar musket-balls, and the rest of us war either gashed by thar knives or had got ugly cracks. However, six of them war lying in the boat when we hauled it alongside; two war stone-dead, the other four had been stunned with the butt ends of the muskets, or cut down by the darkies' sabres. We took 'em down to the next place and handed 'em over to the sheriff; and as thar happened to be a lot of boats waiting thar for the wind, you may guess it warn't many hours afore they tried and hung 'em. "When the chaps heard the particulars, and that we had sunk one boat, besides bringing off another, they guessed as likely enough the pirates war trapped thar; and so they got up a regular expedition, six boats, each with a dozen men. I went back to show 'em the place. They brought dogs with them, and hunted through the woods and swamps till they came to the patch of higher ground whar the pirates had got thar huts. Thar were about twenty of 'em, mostly negroes, and they fought hard, for thar was no escape, the boat having drifted away after it had sunk. Behind thar war some widish channels, and some of the boats had gone round thar to cut 'em off if they took to swimming. They war killed, every man jack, and that put an end to one of the very worst lots of pirates we ever had on the river." "You were lucky to have got out of it so well, Hiram. I suppose that sort of thing is quite over now."