Jack, but the calm held that night too, and blowed if the brigs would sell another breaker--what we had we couldn't spare to the poor devils under hatches, and the next day, why they died off like rotten sheep, till we hove the last on 'em o'board; and frighterful enough it was, mind ye, for to see about fifty sharks at work all round the schooner at once, as long as it lasted. "'Well, in the arternoon we'd just commenced squabbling aboard amongst ourselves, round the dreg water, or whether to board one o' the brigs and have a fair fight, when off come a bit of a breeze, betwixt the two high peaks on Fernandy Po, both the brigs set stensails, and begins slipping quietly off--our skipper gived orders to brace after them, and clear away the long gun amidships; but all on a suddent we made out a lump of a brig dropping down before it round the ileyand, which we knowed her well enough for a Bristol craft as had lost half her hands up the Callebar, in the gould an' iv'ry trade. Down she comed, wonderful fast for the light breeze, if there hadn't been one o' yer currents besides off the ileyand, till about half-a-mile away she braces up, seemingly to sheer across it and steer clear of us. Out went our boat, an' the skipper bids every man of her crew to shove a short cutlash inside his trousers. Says he, "I guess we'll first speak 'em fair, but if we don't ha' water enough, it'll be 'tarnall queer, that's all," says he--an' Job was a man never swore, but he _looked_ mighty _bad_ that time, I must say; so we outs oars and pulls right aboard the trader, without answerin' ever a hail, when up the side we bundled on deck, one arter the other, mad for a drink, and sees the master with five or six of a crew, all as white as ghostesses, and two or three Kroomen, besides a long-legged young feller a-sittin' and kicking his feet over the kimpanion hatch, with a tumblerful o' grog in his fist, as fresh to all seemin' as a fish, like a supper-cargo or some'at o' the sort, as them craft commonly has.