The pirate ship, bristling with guns, was now alongside, her deck crowded with men dressed in white linen and broad straw hats, quite like Southern gentlemen, and soon a yawl filled with men armed to the teeth put off from her side. The Iris, with forced courtesy, lowered a gangway for their reception, and six of the strangers climbed on deck. Their leader inquired of the cargo, and was told that the Iris was practically in ballast. “Have you any provisions to spare? We’re a privateer out for pirates. Seen any?” asked the officer. “No,” answered the captain, looking him in the eye. “I can let you have some salt beef and pork.” The play at civility was soon ended, the ship searched, and the stranger, reappearing on deck dressed out in the captain’s best clothes, cried jovially: “Well, sirs, we’re pirates, and you’re our prisoners.” The Iris under her new command tacked back and forth toward the shore, and the prize crew found some rum for their refreshment, and thought, by threatening the cabin boy, to find treasure concealed in the ship. Trembling, he climbed up to the locker, and produced his wallet, but so far from being placated by this offering one pirate knocked him down and made as if to skewer him with a cutlass, while another vowed to throw him overboard. Then they ordered him off to bed, and he crept into the sailroom. Next morning all were called up to man ship, and captor and prize beat down the coast to “Point Jaccos” where the boats lay-to and the pirates spent the night in drinking and the Yankees in keeping out of their way. The captain and the cabin boy hid under the longboat. In the morning they put into a bay, a true pirate rendezvous, with mangroves growing down to the water’s edge. The cargo was transferred to the pirate ship, and their captain, boarding the Iris, ordered his officer to get money from the Yankees or kill all hands and burn the brig. But the Yankees understood his Spanish, and Captain Mayo, averring still that he had no money aboard, offered if the pirates would send him into Matanzas to return with any ransom they should name. “Very good,” said the pirate. “I give you three days. If you aren’t back then with six thousand dollars, I’ll kill all the crew and fire the brig.”