“Because you dare not do it, and that’s why,” I told him, as I pointed at the “Charleston” which, with her decks cleared for action, was anchored only a few hundred yards off to port. “I dare you to do it. I defy you to do it. Send me aboard the ‘Aquidaban’ if you dare.” I was making a strong bluff and I got away with it. The outraged Britisher swelled up with anger and turned almost purple, but he did not reply to my taunt. Instead, he summoned the master at arms and placed me in his charge, ordered his launch, and dashed off to the “Charleston.” He returned in half an hour and, without another word to me, ordered a lieutenant to take me aboard the “Charleston.” I will not deny that I was a bit easier in my mind when I saw my own flag flying over me, yet had I known the treatment I was to receive under it, I would have felt quite differently. It was easy to see, from the reception which Captain Picking gave me, that he had been influenced by the attitude of Captain Lang, for he took about the same view of my action. I told him that I was an American citizen, temporarily in the employment of the Brazilian Government, as were several other Americans who loved fighting and excitement; that I had violated no law of the United States or of Brazil, and I demanded that I be set ashore. He coldly informed me that I would be confined to the ship, at least until he had consulted with the American Minister and communicated with Washington. Not only did Picking regard Mello as a rebel rather than a pirate but he went even farther and recognized him as a belligerent, which meant that he was entitled to all the rights of war. This opinion was shaped, undoubtedly, by the royalist commanders in the harbor, whose superior rank seemed to have a hypnotic effect on Picking, and their influence over him was so strong that soon after I arrived on the “Charleston” I was confined to my room, as a dangerous character and a man who threatened the peace of nations. With this decidedly unpleasant recollection, however, it is a pleasure to know that the other American naval officers, who arrived later, took exactly my view of the whole situation and became champions of my cause. They told Picking that Mello was a pirate and should be treated as such, and that I was being deprived of my liberty without the slightest warrant of law, but they were powerless to accomplish my release, as Picking was in command, as the senior officer present, and all of the correspondence with Washington was conducted through him. Captain Terry, though he never had met me and could not be charged with having his opinion biassed by any personal relation, was especially vigorous in urging that I be released and that Mello’s farcical revolution be suppressed without further ceremony. He denounced my detention as a disgrace to the American Navy and though he and Picking had been bosom friends up to that time, a coolness developed between them, on account of the manner