A week later we were in a particularly dangerous place, near where the Brazilian barkentine had been scuttled. Late in the afternoon as we entered a narrow passage, we sighted a big proa close to an island on the port bow, and less than half a mile farther on we came on another one partly hidden in the mouth of a creek in a larger island on the starboard hand. There was not a sign of life on either one of them but I knew their crews were close by and felt that we were in for it. I was fussing with the torpedo when we came upon them and it struck me that this would be a good chance to put it to the test, if both of them attacked us at once, which I supposed they would do. We had neither fulminate of mercury nor gun-cotton aboard but I had been working to overcome that very difficulty and had arranged the firing pin so that it would discharge a cartridge into an explosive charge of black powder. We packed the chamber with powder, and filled enough air cylinders to keep the torpedo afloat, bent on a towing line of new manila rope, one hundred fathoms long, and had everything in readiness by the time it was dark. We kept a sharp lookout and it was not long until we heard the soft _chug_ of oars off the starboard bow. Our whaleboat, which was manned and waiting, at once set off in a course which, we figured, would carry the towing line across the bow of the proa. A few minutes later we made out the other proa coming up astern on the port side. The pair of them got so close that it looked as though something had gone wrong with my torpedo and I was just about to divide our crew to meet them on both sides when there was a flash and a roar less than fifty yards away, and the complete success of my invention was demonstrated. The proa was thrown out of the water, turned over, and badly smashed up. We never knew how many of her crew were killed by the explosion but not many could have escaped. The other craft swung around to board us but we riddled it with full charges from the fore and aft carronades and it began to sink. The survivors took to the water and a lot of them attacked the whaleboat, which had towed the torpedo, as it was making its way back to the ship. The boat’s crew were prepared for them and their heavy cutlasses chopped off every hand that grasped the gunwale and split open every head they could reach.