The brig was a Yankee-built vessel; originally, as lettering in her cabin proved, hailing from Baltimore. She had a capacity of two hundred and fifty tons; was sharp forward; with a clean, pretty run; spars lofty and very nearly perpendicular, depending for support more on the strength of stays and shrouds than on bulk and weight of timber, with a spread of canvas that completely overshadowed her. The first man to greet the youth as he sprang over the quarter-rail, was the old lieutenant, Donald Rodney, a man past his first half century of life; a stout, rugged, pleasant-faced English seaman. He was a true friend and he meant to do as nearly right as he knew how; or, such had been his aim in other years, but he had of late fallen under new influences, and Percy, as he gazed upon him, and found his eye faltering, feared that he had been going wrong. In short, he feared that all hands--that everything on board, had been going wrong for a considerable time. However, that was no time for moralizing. He had come to save the brig, and he would do it if he could. He cast his eyes over the taffrail, and saw the ship not a fathom more than a mile and a half away. She was nearer than he had thought. “Donald, why haven’t you cast overboard a part of your cargo! Mercy on us! If the corvette had a single mile more of running space she would be very apt to--” The speech was cut short by the flash of a gun at the ship’s weather bridle port and at the same instant a crashing aloft. A few moments later the brig’s main top-gallant mast came tearing down over the lee rail. “Cut away! Cut everything clear!” shouted our hero. He paused here, and looked around upon the men who came crowding upon the quarter-deck. The brig’s crew numbered five-and-fifty men, only thirty of whom had been with the old commander, Captain Maitland. The five-and-twenty new men had been added by Tryon, and they were a dark-visaged, evil-eyed looking set. The only thing that Percy could think of when he looked at them, was five-and-twenty pirates! He was well aware that of the old crew there were a number--perhaps the majority of them--who would have readily departed upon an evil course under the influence of an evil leader. He looked over the crew as they came aft, and asked them: “Will you give the command to me? Quick with your answer!” “Yes! Yes!” “Then cut away the wreck of the mast and take your stations, Rodney!” “Aye, aye, sir!” “Put two of the very best men you have at the wheel.” “I guess I’d better be one of ’em, sir.” “No. I want you in the waist. I must take my place on the heel of the bowsprit, when the pinch comes.”