The captain of the cutter, seeing we were making sail, did the same, and after having shot ahead of us, hailed once more. “Mr Walcolm, why don’t you run to leeward, and heave-to, sir?” “Answer him instantly, and hail again for another boat,” said the sable fiend, and cocked his pistol. The click went to my heart. The young midshipman turned his pale mild countenance, laced with his blood, upwards towards the moon and stars, as one who had looked his last look on earth; the large tears were flowing down his cheeks, and mingling with the crimson streaks, and a flood of silver light fell on the fine features of the poor boy, as he said firmly, “Never.” The miscreant fired, and he fell dead. “Up with the helm, and wear across her stern.” The order was obeyed. “Fire!” The whole broadside was poured in, and we could hear the shot rattle and tear along the cutter’s deck, and the shrieks and groans of the wounded, while the white splinters glanced away in all directions. We now ranged alongside, and close action commenced, and never do I expect to see such an infernal scene again. Up to this moment there had been neither confusion nor noise on board the pirate--all had been coolness and order; but when the yards locked, the crew broke loose from all control they ceased to be men they were demons, for they threw their own dead and wounded, as they were mown down like grass by the cutter’s grape, indiscriminately down the hatchways to get clear of them. They had stript themselves almost naked; and although they fought with the most desperate courage, yelling and cursing, each in his own tongue, most hideously, yet their very numbers, pent up in a small vessel, were against them. At length, amidst the fire, and smoke, and hellish uproar, we could see that the deck had become a very shambles; and unless they soon carried the cutter by boarding, it was clear that the coolness and discipline of my own glorious service must prevail, even against such fearful odds, the superior size of the vessel, greater number of guns, and heavier metal. The pirates seemed aware of this themselves, for they now made a desperate attempt forward to carry their antagonist by boarding, led on by the black captain. Just at this moment, the cutter’s main-boom fell across the schooner’s deck, close to where we were sheltering ourselves from the shot the best way we could; and while the rush forward was being made, by a sudden impulse Splinter and I, followed by Peter and the dog, (who with wonderful sagacity, seeing the uselessness of resistance, had cowered quietly by my side during the whole row) scrambled along it as the cutter’s people were repelling the attack on her bow, and all four of us in our haste jumped down on the poor Irishman at the wheel. “Murder, fire, rape, and robbery! it is capsized, stove in, sunk, burned, and destroyed I am! Captain, Captain, we are carried aft here--Och, hubbaboo for Patrick Donnally!”