"Now!" shouted the captain, raising his hand. The double report of Wyzinski's rifle followed. The bulky Malay, shot through the back, loosed his hold of the wheel, the spokes flew round as he threw up his hands, and with one long unearthly yell fell forward dead on the deck; the schooner, as Captain Weber foresaw, under the pressure of her enormous mainsail, flying up into the wind, and almost crossing the brig's fore-foot. "Starboard! hard a-starboard!" roared the captain, as the whole fury of the squall struck the two vessels. Dashing madly onward, the "Halcyon" tore through the water as with one broad sheer to port she neared the black hull. For a moment her decks seemed to overshadow those of the doomed craft, while her broad bow, with all the force of the tempest driving her, struck the schooner amidships. "Hurrah!" shouted the master, in his excitement, "Hurrah! To Hell with the pirates!" The shock was tremendous, as the brig bore down her small antagonist bodily, burying her beneath the sea. The crashing sound of splintering wood followed, a hundred half-naked yelling figures were grouped on the schooner's decks, the next a few floating spars lay astern, a few drowning wretches cried for the mercy they themselves had refused, and the "Halcyon" passed on her way. Half-a-dozen Malays had escaped, as, clutching at the ropes and gear which hung from the jib-boom broken with the shock, they scrambled on board, to meet the cutlasses of the enraged crew. Their bodies were hove overboard, and then not a vestige remained of the dreaded pirate, the scourge of the Indian sea. Leaping from the quarter-deck, Wyzinski hauled at the hatchway, shouting down it to his friend below. He was just in time, for but another moment and the brig, disembarrassed of her enemy, would have been blown to atoms; as it was, a wild cheer burst from the crew when five minutes later Hughes was hoisted on deck, his pistol black with the loose powder into which it had been thrust, and his face pale with excitement. "We are in the hands of Providence, dear lady," said the captain, as the whole party sought the cabin. "With a half-dismasted ship, a heavy gale in prospect, and a lee shore, there is much to be done; but the great peril is over. You can clear the deck, Mr Lowe, of all the boxes and bales we roused up. I don't think the pirates will trouble us any more. Take the foresail off her, and send the carpenter aft." The captain had his hands full on deck. Scudding before the wind is ever a dangerous thing, because the waves following so fast are apt to break on board, if the vessel is not propelled through the water with a speed greater than that of the following sea.