I am not altogether sure who it was by this means solved the mystery, but I think it was Captain Spurrier; howbeit we had not endured that sweeping gale above an half-minute, before some one cried out that the apparition was nothing else than the carven prow of the _Saracen's Head_, that dragging at her moorings by the wharf had run against the Inn wall and destroyed it; which was presently confirmed by the ship's again battering us, but broadside, and not head-on as before. For as I have (I think) already said, the Inn was jutted out to the extreme edge of the _Fair Haven_ wharf, so that at the high tide there was a deepness of water sufficient for any ordinary ship to lie alongside and discharge her cargo upon the quay; the tide mark running a little below the vault where we were, that else would have been suddenly flooded by the inflow of water through the broken wall. Beyond measure relieved that we were besieged by neither soldier nor devil, we could not restrain our joy, and so by a common impulse moved to be gone, the whole company of us that yet remained alive and able, ran forward to the breach, and to the ship's side, having her starboard light to further us that had formerly so stricken us into dismay. And thus by this way and that, grasping at whatever projection of blocks and shrouds lay to our hands, some helping and other hindering our escape, we had at length all clambered up into the ship, save only that traitor Cutts, who, upon a sudden lurch of the ship, was crushed betwixt the bulwark and the wall, and so died. I looked about for my uncle, and soon found him, leaning over the rail. "Ha, Denis," said he coolly, "so thou art escaped. I had a notion 'twas thou wert crushed against the wall." "You mistook then," said I, and might have said more, had not Captain Spurrier laid a hand upon my collar, the whiles he clapped his pistol to my uncle's ear, and called out-- "Lay me these men in irons, Attwood. I am master on my own good ship, if not in that fiends' compter." We were seized upon instantly and hurried down to the hold, where, heavily shackled, we were thrown among such stuff as there lay stored. The vessel rolled horribly, and often drove against the impediments upon the bank with a dreadful grinding noise, but about morning, as I supposed, they got her about, and into the stream, where, the tempest somewhat abating, she rode pretty free, though what course she kept I could not be certain in, and indeed soon gave over the attempt to follow their purposes that had us so utterly in their power. CHAPTER XXIII THE VOYAGE OF THE _SARACEN'S HEAD_