A yell of rage burst from the natives in the canoes, but it was answered by the fire of musketry from the ship and the thunder of two car-ronades, which, loaded with iron nuts and bolts, had been in readiness, one on the poop, the other on the topgallant forecastle--and the girl succeeded in reaching the ship's side in time to take hold of a life-buoy secured to a line which was thrown to her, and Wright, jumping overboard, helped the poor creature up over the side into safety. Then began a desperate and furious assault to capture the ship. The savages, led by the renegade Malay, made three successive attempts to board, but were each time beaten back by Wright and his gallant seamen, and the crystal water around the _Union_ was soon reddened to a deep hue. Meanwhile the cable had been slipped, and, like the _Portland_, the _Union's_ company were saved from death by the freshness of the trade-wind alone. In half an hour after the last attack had been repelled, the ship was out of danger from pursuit. As soon as the vessel had cleared the passage Wright hove her to, and went down below to Miss Morey, who, exhausted and almost hysterical as she was, yet answered his questions readily. "You must forgive me, madam, but it is my duty to at once ask you an important question. Are you _sure_ that Captain Pendleton and the supercargo are dead? I cannot take the ship away if there is any uncertainty about their fate." "I beseech you, sir, to have no doubts. I saw the two gentlemen beaten to death by clubs before my eyes.... They were sitting down to eat when they were murdered. One was killed by the Malay man, the other by an old _matabuli_,{*}... Oh, for God's sake, sir, do not delay! The natives have been planning to capture this ship and murder her people for the past three days." Then as she became more collected she satisfied him that all of Captain Pendleton's party had been cruelly and treacherously murdered, and also told him her own terrible story previous to the arrival of the _Union_. The destruction of poor Pendleton and Mr. Boston had been planned, she said, by the Malay; and when he and his native friends found that they could not induce Mr. Wright to further weaken his ship's company by sending another boat's crew on shore, so that the _Union_ might the more easily be captured, she was ordered under the most awful threats to act as decoy. Resolved to upset their diabolical plan, or die in the attempt, she gave an apparently cheerful assent to the meditated scheme of murder, and hence her appearance in the canoe with the treacherous Malay.