Willis deigned not an answer; and with a curled lip, expressive of his scorn, remained motionless. For a short time the captain of the brig looked at him in silence, and then, apparently overcome by bodily fatigue, ordered Willis to be put in double irons, which being put upon him at once, he was carried on the berth-deck, and placed under the charge of a sentinel. As soon as the wounded had been carried below, the brig sent a prize crew on board the captured slaver; and after a short struggle, they succeeded in reducing her negroes to submission. By this time the ship that had been chasing the schooner, and whose boats had been repulsed in the morning, came up, and proved to be the Vixen, whose captain coming on board of the Scorpion, in consequence of Capt. De Vere’s inability to leave his cabin, and congratulated him on his good fortune in capturing the Maraposa, ordered him to proceed to Havana with the prize, and have her condemned, and her crew, or what remained of them, tried by the mixed commission;[2] and leaving them to make the passage, we will return to where we left De Vere, on the beach, after his duel with Willis. ----- [1] Monkey-tails. Short, iron crow-bars, used as levers in moving the breech of the guns. [2] A court established in Havana, expressly for the trial of slavers. CHAPTER VI. _Jul._ What villain, madam? _Lady Cap._ That same villain, Romeo. _Jul._ Villain and he are many miles asunder God pardon him! I do, with all my heart: And yet no man, like he, doth grieve my heart. Romeo and Juliet. When De Vere’s second picked him up, he was senseless; and his shirt, stained with blood on the left breast, made him think he had been shot through the heart. But the surgeon of the brig, who was in attendance, examined him more closely, and found that he had made a narrow escape; he was not mortally, but still dangerously wounded; the ball had struck directly over the heart, but taking a diagonal direction, it had passed out under his arm, without touching the seat of life. Carefully raising him, they carried him to the boat, and supporting him on their knees, he was conveyed to his vessel, then at anchor in the harbor. De Vere had promised to dine at Don Manuel’s the day of the duel; and the old gentleman, surprised at his absence—for he had always been most punctual in keeping his appointments there—sent a servant down to the brig to see if the captain was unwell. The man came hurrying back with a long, exaggerated report of the affair, and said that “Captain De Vere had been shot by a notorious slave captain; and was dying, if not already dead.” Alarmed at this information, the old gentleman went at once to see De Vere; and finding he was only badly wounded, by the consent of the physician, had him removed from the brig to his own house.