As I cleared the hatchway I saw the quarter-deck free ahead of me, and, giving a yell to Brown to follow, I plunged headlong over the taffrail into the sea. When I reached the surface with the girl in my arms, I turned to look back. I saw Brown hurl his belaying-pin into the crowd that had followed him aft, and as they chased him to the side he leaped over the rail on to the deck-strake. Then, running rapidly along the narrow projection on the vessel’s side, he threw up his hands and took a flying dive astern. When he came to the surface he was over one hundred feet from his pursuers, and the ship was still forging ahead from her headway, although her canvas was all back and everything in a mess aloft. With a few strokes Brown reached me, and together we held the girl afloat and struck out for the English ship. Those on board the gunboat had seen something of the fracas, and, as soon as they saw the _Arrow_ luff, they started to get out their boats as fast as willing hands could hoist them. I swam easily, but I soon found that I was getting very faint, and that my breath seemed to burn like a flame in my throat and chest. I tried to tell Brown that I was going, but I could not utter a word. I remember seeing a boat approaching swiftly, and I remember noticing the even sweep of the oars until they appeared to row over my head and thunder past my ears. The noise was deafening, and my brain felt as if it were splitting with the roar. I put my hand to my head, felt something near it--awoke and found myself lying in a bunk on board of a strange ship. Then a soft hand brushed soothingly over my temples as gently as the breath of the trade-wind. A sweet voice whispered in my ear to lie quiet, and it made me feel so well that, in my upset state, I began to believe that I had at last cruised into the port of missing ships. I soon found, however, that I was not so badly wounded as I had reason to suppose, and that Brown was aboard there with me, his wounded leg doing well in spite of the twitching it received in that last rally. CHAPTER XXIII. During the short time I was in the water, a desperate fight was going on aboard the _Arrow_. Johnson, seeing how matters were turning out, rallied his men for a stand. Five boats from the man-o’-war, filled with blue-jackets, armed and ready for the fight, drew alongside before the convicts could get the ship out of irons. She lay with her yards aback, and those who worked intelligently had their work undone by those who in their frantic haste worked like maniacs.