rose and put to death the remaining pirates, and then ran the vessel into the first river they reached, which proved to be the Kaleka, where they were seized, and became the property of the governing Datu; and my informant was again sold to my companion, while on a visit to his friend the Datu. Each of the attacking prahus had between fifty and sixty men, including slaves, and the larger one between ninety and a hundred. The result might have been very different to our gallant but dosy Jolly Bachelors. I have already mentioned the slaughter committed by the fire of the pinnace, under Lieutenant Horton, into the largest Malay prahu; and the account given of the scene which presented itself on the deck of the defeated pirate, when taken possession of, affords a striking proof of the character of these fierce rovers; resembling greatly what we read of the Norsemen and Scandinavians of early ages. Among the mortally wounded lay the young commander of the prahu, one of the most noble forms of the human race; his countenance handsome as the hero of Oriental romance, and his whole bearing wonderfully impressive and touching. He was shot in front and through the lungs, and his last moments were rapidly approaching. He endeavored to speak, but the blood gushed from his mouth with the voice he vainly essayed to utter in words. Again and again he tried, but again and again the vital fluid drowned the dying effort. He looked as if he had something of importance which he desired to communicate, and a shade of disappointment and regret passed over his brow when he felt that every essay was unavailing, and that his manly strength and daring spirit were dissolving into the dark night of death. The pitying conquerors raised him gently up, and he was seated in comparative ease, for the welling out of the blood was less distressing; but the end speedily came: he folded his arms heroically across his wounded breast, fixed bis eyes upon the British seamen around, and, casting one last glance at the ocean--the theater of his daring exploits, on which he had so often fought and triumphed--expired without a sigh. The spectators, though not unused to tragical and sanguinary sights, were unanimous in speaking of the death of the pirate chief as the most affecting spectacle they had ever witnessed. A sculptor might have carved him as an Antinous in the mortal agonies of a Dying Gladiator. The leaders of the piratical prahus are sometimes poetically addressed by their followers as _Matari_, i. e., the sun; or _Bulan_, the moon; and from his superiority in every respect, physical and intellectual, the chief whose course was here so fatally closed seemed to be worthy of either celestial name. CHAPTER XVI.