Instantly the firing ceased. I stood there between compassion and disgust, willing yet loathing to touch the pitiful corpse, when a woman--Susannah--ran screaming by me and fell on her knees beside it. I saw a trickle of blood ooze beneath the scarlet folds of the flag. It crawled along the plank, hesitated at a seam, and grew there to an oddly shaped pool. I watched it. In shape I thought it remarkably like the map of Ireland. And I became aware that some one was speaking to me, and looked up to find a lean and lantern-jawed American come aboard and standing at my shoulder. "Are you anywise hard of hearing, stranger? Or must I repeat to you that this licks cockfighting?" "I, at any rate, am not disputing it, sir." "The _Lady Nepean_, too! Is that the Cap'n yonder? I thought as much. Dead, hey? Well, he'd better _stay_ dead; though I'd have enjoyed the inside o' five minutes' talk, just to find out what he did it for." "Did what?" "Why, brought the _Lady Nepean_ into these waters, and Commodore Rodgers no further away than Rhode Island, by all accounts. He must have had a nerve. And what post might _you_ be holding on this all-fired packet? Darn _me_, but you have females enough on board!" For indeed there were three poor creatures kneeling now and crooning over the dead captain. The men had surrendered--they had no arms to fling down--and were collected in the waist, under guard of a cordon of Yankees. One lay senseless on deck, and two or three were bleeding from splinter wounds; for the enemy, her freeboard being lower by a foot or two than the wall sides of the _Lady Nepean_, had done little execution on deck, whatever the wounds in our hull might be. "I beg your pardon, Captain--" "Seccombe, sir, is my name. Alpheus Q. Seccombe, of the _Manhattan_ schooner." "Well, then, Captain Seccombe, I am a passenger on board this ship, and know neither her business here nor why she has behaved in a fashion that makes me blush for her flag--which, by the way, I have every reason to abominate." "O, come now! You're trying it on. It's a yard-arm matter, and I don't blame you, to be sure. Cap'n sank the mails?" "There were none to sink, I believe." He conned me curiously. "You don't look like a Britisher, either." "I trust not. I am the Viscount Anne de Keroual de Saint-Yves, escaped from a British war-prison." "Lucky for you if you prove it. We'll get to the bottom of this." He faced about and called, "Who's the first officer of this brig?" Reuben Colenso was allowed to step forward. Blood from a scalp-wound had run and caked on his right cheek, but he stepped squarely enough. "Bring him below," Captain Seccombe commanded. "And you, Mr. What's-your-name, lead the way. It's one or the other of us will get the hang of this affair." He seated himself at the head of the table in the main cabin, and spat ceremoniously on the floor. "Now, sir: you are, or were, first officer of this brig?"