At the entrance of this bay, in about three fathoms water, heedless of the spring cable which hung down as a rope which had fallen overboard, there floated, motionless as death, a vessel whose proportions would have challenged the unanimous admiration of those who could appreciate the merits of her build, had she been anchored in the most frequented and busy harbour of the universe. So beautiful were her lines, that you might almost have imagined her a created being that the ocean had been ordered to receive, as if fashioned by the Divine Architect, to add to the beauty and variety of His works; for, from the huge leviathan to the smallest of the finny tribe--from the towering albatross to the boding petrel of the storm--where could be found, among the winged or finned frequenters of the ocean, a form more appropriate, more fitting, than this specimen of human skill, whose beautiful model and elegant tapering spars were now all that could be discovered to break the meeting lines of the firmament and horizon of the offing. Alas! she was fashioned, at the will of avarice, for the aid of cruelty and injustice, and now was even more nefariously employed. She had been a slaver--she was now the far-famed, still more dreaded, pirate schooner, the _Avenger_. Not a man-of-war which scoured the deep but had her instructions relative to this vessel, which had been so successful in her career of crime--not a trader in any portion of the navigable globe but whose crew shuddered at the mention of her name, and the remembrance of the atrocities which had been practised by her reckless crew. She had been everywhere--in the east, the west, the north, and the south, leaving a track behind her of rapine and of murder. There she lay in motionless beauty, her low sides were painted black, with one small, narrow riband of red--her raking masts were clean scraped--her topmasts, her cross-trees, caps, and even running-blocks, were painted in pure white. Awnings were spread fore and aft to protect the crew from the powerful rays of the sun; her ropes were hauled taut; and in every point she wore the appearance of being under the control of seamanship and strict discipline. Through the clear smooth water her copper shone brightly; and as you looked over her taffrail down into the calm blue sea, you could plainly discover the sandy bottom beneath her, and the anchor which then lay under her counter. A small boat floated astern, the weight of the rope which attached her appearing, in the perfect calm, to draw her towards the schooner.