RECAPTURE OF A PRIZE
277
be in the steerage, and the prize-master had just turned in, being their watch below ; thus, eight only, including the boy, could be on deck. All being ready, with one consent the brothers sprang to their arms ; the American master at this instant luckily gave no sign of being awake, and while the younger brother locked the cabin door after him, Captain — got on deck and cried aloud, " This vessel is now again my property ! " immediately discharging a pistol at the helmsman. The seamen appeared to have been collected on the larboard side of the quarter-deck, talking with the man at the helm, who dropped in consequence of receiving, almost at the same moment with the slugshot, a sabre wound. The others ran round the opposite side of the companion on their way forward ; the remaining charge of slugs was sent among them, and Captain — pursued, while his brother, stationed at the companion, warned those below that an attempt to corne on deck would meet with instant death. On the former reaching the windlass, he found the mate, a tall muscular man, ready to charge him with a boarding pike, but knocking it aside with his broadsword, and placing the muzzle of the remaining pistol close to the man's head, he ordered him instantly below, a mandate that was promptly obeyed ; those remaining quickly followed, tumbling down the hatchway in great haste, to the manifest danger of their limbs. He then drew the hatch over, and lashed a kedge across it to the two