We took possession of the chase, and found her indeed a prize. She was deeply laden with silks, but we were most pleased with a booty of specie to the amount of several hundred thousands of dollars. I never saw a more cowardly set of men than her crew. They had run below hatches, in spite of all the master could do, almost as soon as we opened our fire on them; and when we boarded her, there was no one on deck except her skipper, a surly, obstinate old Englishman, who was doggedly biting off a piece of pigtail as long as the tiller by which he stood. He told us that he had spoken, but the day before, several outward bound vessels, and that nothing was talked of along shore but the Yankee schooner that was scouring the channel, a craft that, it was whispered, was sailed on account of Davy Jones, and which it would be as impossible to escape from as from a _pampero_ off Buenos Ayres. We could not but smile at this flattering picture of ourselves and craft. The old skipper told us, in conclusion, that no less than two men-of-war, besides the usual channel cruisers, had been despatched in pursuit of us, and he even hinted, coolly turning his quid, that he had little fear of a long imprisonment, for we would be sure to be caught before twenty-four hours should elapse. As it would be impossible to carry off the prize, and as the conflict had doubtless been heard on shore, the skipper determined to end the adventure as boldly as he had begun it, and, accordingly, he ordered the brig to be set on fire, when we should have removed whatever of the cargo was most valuable and portable. It was accordingly done. When we filled away to leave the chase, the smoke could just be seen, curling in light wreaths up her hatchways, but she presented no other evidence of the ruin that was so soon to overtake her. Her forward sails had been left standing, and her helm lashed down, and she now lay to beautifully, drifting bodily off to leeward like a line-of-battle ship. The utter desertion of her decks, her slow, majestic movements as she rose and fell, the twilight into which she was gradually fading, and the glittering line of lights behind her, along the hostile coast, associated inseparably in our minds with ideas of danger to ourselves, contributed to form a scene as imposing as it was beautiful, and one that raised a feeling of interest in our bosoms, tinged in no slight degree with that awe which always accompanies a sensation of peril. While we gazed breathlessly, however, on the fast receding brig, dark clouds of smoke began to puff up her hatchways, and rolling heavily to leeward, settle on the face of the waters. Directly a forked tongue of flame shot up into the air, licked around her mast, and then went out as suddenly as it had appeared. Soon, however, darker masses of smoke rolled, volume on volume, up the hatchways, and directly, like a flash of lightning, the fire shot clear and high up from the hold, and