When the English captain hailed, Willis cast a glance at his men, and reading their courage in their looks, said nothing. The sloop drew by until she was abreast of the Maraposa. As soon as Willis saw that all his guns would bear, he sung out—“Fire!” The loud report of his three carronades and long gun instantly resounded; and fired, as they had been, with their muzzles nearly touching the sloop’s sides, the shot did fearful execution; leaving four gaping holes in the man-of-war’s hull, and wounding many of her men. The audacity of this attack, for a moment, seemed to paralize the Englishman; but recovering from his surprise, the captain of the sloop cried out— “Heave over the grappling-irons, and away, ye boarders, away! Spare none of them but the captain; take him alive if you can.” Like an avalanche, the sloop’s boarders poured down upon the deck of the schooner, but her stern crew gave back not an inch! Heroically they stood their ground! In a better cause their deeds would have been immortalized in song and story; but they knew their cause was hopeless, and they were only fighting for revenge: and deep, deep did their cutlases and boarding-axes drink of English blood that day! But they could not contend long against such fearful odds; one by one, they fell dead in their tracks, suppressing even their groans as they died. Soon all that were left alive of the slaver’s crew were Willis, Mateo, and the old captain of the forecastle, who, back to back, on the quarter-deck, were fighting like tigers; and a ring of dead and dying foes around them proved their prowess and strength of arm. A cutlas stroke over the head laid low the hardy old captain of the forecastle, and Willis was alone with Mateo. With a loud huzza, when the old seaman fell, the sloop’s men made a rush to encircle Willis, and capture him alive, but he had heard the English captain’s orders, and determined never again to be in chains. Willis made a desperate effort, and with three strokes of his cutlas, felling a foeman at each, he brought himself opposite the cabin companion-way; quickly from his belt he drew a pistol and fired it down into the cabin. A bright flash followed, and then a noise as if heaven’s artillery had pealed forth a salvo; and all was silent! The lofty sloop, and the graceful schooner, where were they? They had entirely disappeared; and in the place they had occupied nothing was now to be seen but a confused mass of spars! splinters! cordage! dead men’s bodies! legs! arms! heads! floating about; and here and there a few who had escaped with their lives, swimming and endeavoring to get on some floating spar, to prolong for a little time their existence.