Fifty of the crew crawled out upon the bowsprit and sprit-sail yard, where they clung and hoped to be blown clear of the general upheaval. They handsomely deserved extermination, but a dozen gallant volunteers still toiled and suffered in the hold, and at length they smothered the fire before it ate into the magazine. All of them were terribly burned, and it is fair to assume that Captain Davis awarded them an extra share of the plunder when it was distributed. One of the heroes of the crisis was Captain Snelgrave, or so the pirates admiringly agreed, and they were more than ever anxious to befriend him. They would have been glad to serve under him, but he had no taste for piracy and declined the honor when a vote was passed around the tubs of grog that he go as a sailing master until he had gained experience and was ready to command a crew of gentlemen of fortune. Disappointed in this, they used their gold to buy back for him a considerable amount of his cargo, which had been divided or sold ashore, and presented him with some of the merchandise allotted to them from the ships lately captured by Captain Davis. There were worse pirates on the high seas than this collection of gallows-birds in the harbor of Sierra Leone, and merchant mariners much less admirable than this London slave-trader, Captain Snelgrave. Thanks to the exertions of the solicitous pirates, he gathered together sufficient possessions to retrieve the voyage from complete disaster, and the stuff was saved from harm in the rough warehouse ashore, where the kindly Captain Glynn was a vigilant guardian. The pirates were now ready to depart on their disreputable business, Cocklyn and La Boise sailing in company, while Captain Davis ranged off alone. This time he carried out his purpose of raiding the Portuguese colony, the military governor of which received warning from a coasting vessel and accordingly strengthened his defenses and armed every able-bodied man. Captain Davis led his pirates from their boats and stormed the fort under a heavy fire. The Portuguese governor was a fighting man himself and he gave as good as he took. The pirates gained the parapet and set the wooden buildings afire with hand grenades, but while the issue wavered, Captain Davis fell, a pistol-ball in his stomach. In a hand-to-hand conflict his pirates were driven back to the beach, carrying their dying captain with them. Defeated, they left their dead and wounded and fled in the boats, while in the last gasp Captain Davis discharged both his pistols at the enemy. “And those on board the ship, who expected to hoist in treasure, had to receive naught but their wounded comrades and dead commander.”