I secured the services of the master's mate in this perilous venture--a tough sea-dog who was ready for anything, provided it was out of the commonplace. This business, I promised him, would at least be that. The quartermaster had charge of the helm. "Look alive, my lads," said he, as we prepared to let ourselves overboard; "her head may go round any moment. As she lies you can drop on to it easy. Take a line with you, and pay out as you go, as you'll need it to come back by. Over you go." We secured our pistols as best we could against the water, and then one after the other dropped over the stern and struck out for the peak. The ship was already beginning to sway on the breeze, and once or twice as we kept close under her side we were in peril of being sucked under or else crushed down by her lurches. However, we managed to reach the hanging tackle below the bowsprit without misadventure; and making fast the end of the line we carried, so that it hung close on the water-line from stem to stern, we began to haul ourselves, with our knives between our teeth, up into the shrouds. While we were doing so the ship swung round into the wind, and began to move through the water. As soon as we got our heads level with the gunwale we could dimly see the forecastle deck before us, and the breeches of the two twenty-four pounders, pointed astern. There was a man in charge of each. The two sat on the deck, with a can of liquor between them, playing dice in a quarrelsome, half-tipsy way. The rest of the company were assembled on the middle deck, and, to judge by the sounds, were deep in the discussion of their rum and their grievances. I gave my comrade a signal, and next moment we sprang noiselessly on board, and had the two gunners overpowered, gagged, and made fast before they could utter a sound or reach for their arms. Then without losing a moment we drove our nails into the touch-holes of the guns, trusting to the noise of the revellers and the dash of the water at the bows to drown the sound of the hammer. This done we dropped overboard, each with a prisoner, as quietly as we had come, and with the aid of the line reached the stern in safety, and found ourselves once more on the sanctuary of the quarter-deck. Scarcely had we done so when we became aware of a movement among the enemy. So busily occupied had they been in their debauch that they had not noticed the change in the weather, or the advantage which had been taken of it to put the ship under way. As it was, they might have even allowed that to pass, supposing it only brought them nearer to Yarmouth Roads, when one of the old salts in their number pronounced that the new wind was from another quarter, and that instead of closing in with the admiral's fleet off Yarmouth the _Zebra_ was running for the open sea with a strong south-wester astern.