The End of the Terror

A COLONIAL INCIDENT: BEING THE PERSONAL NARRATIVE OF WILLIAM HARLESTON, GENT., OF WAMBADEE PLANTATION, NEAR CHARLES TOWN, IN THE PROVINCE OF SOUTH CAROLINA.

So often have I been urged by my friends to put into writing the incident of the destruction of the pirate schooner Terror, in the year of grace 1719, in which I, William Harleston of Wambadee, was personally engaged, that I have at last determined to do so. For being now, on this 27th day of November, 1735, my birthday, an old man, as age is counted in this province, I think that if the story is to be told at all it had best be told now.

As we all remember, the government of the Lords Proprietors had at that time become very unpopular in this province, and men were beginning to clamor for a change, desiring a governor by the royal appointment who should be directly responsible to the Crown. Governor Robert Johnson had been much disturbed by these oppositions, which were very strong in the Assembly, and found it necessary to send a confidential messenger to London for conference with their lordships, to which highly honorable and responsible duty I had the good fortune to be assigned. My mission being accomplished, and I ready and anxious to return to the province, it was found that no vessel was like to sail for Charles Town for more than a month to come, and therefore for greater expedition, since my matters were very urgent, their lordships advised that I take passage in a brig just sailing for the Barbados, having procured for me a royal warrant for any of his Majesty’s ships that might be lying there to bring me on to Charles Town at the earliest day that wind and weather would permit. Accordingly, on arriving at Bridge Town I was fortunate enough to find H. M. corvette the Nightingale lying at her anchors in Carlisle Bay, in port for fresh water and some new spars, her royal masts and yards having been carried away by a hurricane a few days before ; these terrific winds being very prevalent in those latitudes, and sometimes doing immense damage to the lives and property of the people of that island. For nearly two centuries these seas had been infested by buccaneers and pirates of every class and character, from those who, like Drake and Hawkins, sailed under the protection of letters of marque nominally to prey on the commerce of the Spaniards, but actually on any merchant vessel, flying any flag, which was not strong enough to resist capture, to those diabolical villains whose crimes had made them hostes humani generis, like Teach and Evrard, and whom the laws of all nations permitted to be strung up to the yard-arm by a drum-head court-martial or gibbeted on the nearest tree, by any that might take them on sea or land. These wretches would often come ashore at the coastwise plantations and towns, which they plundered and burned at will, having more than once been bold enough to levy tribute on Charles Town itself. Barbados, being a very small and rich island, in easy reach of their haunts, had always been looked at by these sea-kites with covetous eyes, but was, from its situation, perfectly safe from their attacks, guarded by impassable coral reefs on every side except the roadstead of Carlisle Bay, which is its only harbor, and which is well protected by the batteries on Needham Point and elsewhere, making any assault on Bridge Town impossible.

The Nightingale, commanded by Lord William Campbell, a cadet of the noble house of Argyle, was cruising between the Floridas and the British West Indies in quest of these very gentry of the black pennant, who had lately been committing many outrages in these waters, under the notorious Teach, more commonly known as “Blackboard,” and Steed Bonnet, a retired major in the royal service, who, for some unaccountable reason, had taken to sea-roving, and had made his name a terror to all who traded between New York and the Spanish Main. It is unnecessary for me here to relate particularly how, in this very year, Teach was attacked in his Cape Fear nest by Governor Spottiswoode, of the Virginias, himself killed and his piratical horde exterminated, or how Bonnet and his entire crew were captured by Colonel William Rhett, of Charles Town, and hanged at White Point with thirty-eight others of his villainous gang. On presenting my credentials to Lord William I found him very ready to perform the duty required of him, he having not long since been married to a lovely and very wealthy lady of Charles Town, and being not unwilling to any business which would take him back to that port.

Two days later we sailed out of Carlisle Bay and stood away to the nor’west, Lord William thinking to coast the Floridas as nearinshore as he could make a safe offing; that being a way to perform two duties, and possibly pick up a prize without undue delay to his voyage. Our progress was slow, however, since the corvette’s best point of sailing was close-hauled, while we had nothing but beam winds and half-hurricanes, which made long tacks necessary to avoid the dangers of the shore, so that it was near two weeks before we made the low outlying islands of the Carolina coast. It was the morning of the tenth day out when we found ourselves some five miles off the mouth of Charles Town harbor, the weather being rough, with a chopping sea, such as is always made on that bar when the wind blows against or across the tide, and the shore line completely hidden by a dense fog, which had lifted to seaward, where the whitecaps were having a merry dance on the combs of a long, rolling swell. Shoreward we could hear the distant roar of breakers and the noisy tumble of the shoals which make the bar of Charles Town so dangerous. Schools of porpoises were slowly heaving their black backs above the water, in the manner which makes me think them to be responsible for the stories of a great sea-serpent which mariners bring to us from time to time. The presence of these fish — being, indeed, more like pigs than like other fishes — was itself enough to show that we were near inshore, for they never go out to sea, like the dolphins, from which they differ in their darker color and more sluggish movements, never leaping, like them, from the water, nor racing before the ship’s cutwater. Now and then a flock of those large black ducks which we call “ tarpots ” would come flying heavily out of the fog, flapping along just above the wave crests, and drop lazily into the sea, — another certain indication of the land. The sun was about an hour high, and the ship was just coming about for a long board on the starboard tack, when the lookout aloft hailed the deck and reported a sail two points on the starboard bow. A midshipman scrambled up to the crosstrees with a telescope nearly as long as himself, and soon reappeared on the poop deck to report the strange sail as a low schooner, with very slender masts and long spars, making out to sea under all sail as fast as her legs could carry her, flying no colors, and about two leagues away. Exactly what to do under the circumstances was an awkward question to settle, for it was doubtful which would be the more acceptable to the authorities, proprietary and royal, — the speedy return to Charles Town of the private agent of both, or the capture of perhaps a desperate rover, just at a juncture when such a stroke might have an important influence in extirpating all such wretches from our seas. The destruction of Blackbeard, together with the wholesale hanging of Bonnet and his crew under the stern sentence of Mr. Chief Justice Nicholas Trott, had produced two very opposite effects. The pirates had for the most part abandoned the waters of the provinces as no longer wholesome, and betaken themselves to the Caribbean Islands and the Costa Rica, so that navigation was now far more safe than for many years before. But one or two of the most desperate of the villains — the foulest scum which even piracy had thrown off in disgust — were known to be still cruising on the forbidden ground ; and these, being the worst and most reckless of them all, had lately been reported as guilty of some most atrocious murders and cruelties, partly from revenge, and partly from pure hopeless deviltry. These scoundrels never omitted scuttling or burning a prize after murdering all on board, on the principle that “ dead men tell no tales.” But dying men sometimes do, as we shall see. The appearance and behavior of the strange sail were so very suspicious that Lord William soon decided to give chase. He offered me the choice of accompanying the ship, or of going into Charles Town in the pinnace, by which means both objects of his voyage might he accomplished. Now I have never, to my knowledge, been accused of cowardice, and twice I have been out with gentlemen who were willing to give me satisfaction for such affronts as the requirements of my honor forbade me to pass over. One of these left me a rapier scar on the left arm by which to remember the occasion, and the other carries on his body a bullet mark of similar reminiscent effect. But I name neither, since we all have long since been good friends again, — as in truth we were when we fought, — and have cracked many a good bottle together since then over a neighborly game of picquet. But I never had any special taste for fighting, nor any strong desire to risk my life except for good and sufficient cause, and I took not the least interest in the world in this matter of the pirates. I therefore promptly accepted Lord William’s offer to put me ashore, little thinking to what result it was to lead.

The pinnace was soon lowered away and her crew told off, being an old Scotch quartermaster, and three seamen and a marine who were in the sick bay, but not too ill for such light duty. These were put on board with me and my luggage ; my skipper and crew looking as glum as discipline permitted at the idea of losing their chance for a hand in the row. As we ran up the lugsail and cast off from the corvette’s side, the ship went about in a perfect pandemonium of drums beating to quarters, whistles piping the watches to their posts, orders shouted through the trumpets, cordage rattling through the blocks, and sails flapping with reports as sharp as pistol-shots. The confusion was all in my mind, however, for everything was done with the precision of machinery, and before we could look into her stern-ports the ship was in fighting trim and the decks as quiet as a churchyard. In five minutes the fog had swallowed us up, and we lost sight of her as she stretched away after her chase, while our stanch little craft danced merrily in towards the harbor, the wind blowing a topsail breeze on our larboard bow and the tide running out on the young ebb, so that it was almost as hard to hold our course in the fog as to keep our jackets dry in the dashing spray. As we had our bearings all right, however, when we dropped away from the ship, and as all of us were familiar with our sailing-ground, it seemed a very easy matter for us to make our port, notwithstanding the thickness of the weather, and after an hour’s run we began to look out pretty sharply for the land - lift of Sullivan’s Island, which should have been showing up on our starboard bow. But we sailed on for an hour more without making it, and it soon began to look very much as if we had been thrown off our course in the fog by the set of the currents, which are very strong on this bar, and are constantly changing with the channels as the heavy deposits from the Ashley and the Cooper are shifted by the tides.

The wind began to veer round to the northeast, and the swash of a heavy surf was growing every minute more distinct, when suddenly the fog lifted and commenced to roll away, revealing to our startled eyes two things which made us look at one another in blank amazement. “ Ha-a-a-rd a-port! ” shouted the old skipper without another word ; and as I jammed down the tiller and the boat swung round before the wind, he let go the sheet, and in three minutes the mast was unstepped, the sail furled, and all stowed snugly along the thwarts, while the men seized the oars and ran them out. No orders were given, and none were necessary, for every man took in the situation at a glance. Right ahead of us was a long white line of washing surf, breaking on the flat beach of an island that I saw at once must be the long spit of sand which flanks the seaward side of Sullivan’s Island, we having made some six miles of northing in the fog. The tide being ebb, there was a rod or two of beach backed by high, shifting sand-hills, behind which was a dense growth of myrtle and young palmetto ; and just above the tide line lay the hull of a large vessel that had beached broadside on, having evidently been wrecked there a long while ago. Her larboard side, which lay toward the water, had been entirely skinned by the breakers, leaving her ribs all bare, while the wet sand that was banked behind her had preserved the planking on the shore side from like destruction. The old skipper had seized the stroke oar, and seeing that I was heading her straight for the wreck he rapped out, “ Ay, sir, beach her there ! Right over the breakers, messmates, as if the deil was after ye ! And he will be, too, directly,” he added grimly, “ gin he be na too busy wi’ his hell’s wark to see us, and that ’s aboot our ae chance to keep our weasands whole. Lord ! gin the Nightingale had only knawed aboot this ane ! ” A dozen strokes of the oars while this was saying had been driving us toward the beach with that long, steady sweep that only man - o’ - war’s men can give to the bending blades. A gruff “ Ay, ay ! ” was the only response from the disciplined seamen, who well knew, every man of them, that the skipper’s words were true ; for there in the offing, not two miles away, lay a large brig, with her sails flapping loose against the masts, while grappled alongside her, with interlocking yards, like some ugly little spider clinging to a huge moth, was a low-railed, wicked-looking schooner, from whose truck was blowing out a long, forked pennant as black as night. It was too far off for us to see more than that there was some bustle on the deck of the brig, and now and again there seemed to be a splash as something went over her side. I had with me a pocket-telescope, but there was no time now to use it. Holding the tiller, I of course had my back to the brig, but the oarsmen never took their eyes from her as they bent with straining muscles to their task. Suddenly one of the men ground his teeth together, with a look of the blackest rage I ever saw, and said in a hoarse whisper, “ By God ! they ’re makin’ ’em walk the plank ! ” Not another word was uttered. Every moment we looked for a boat to put off from the pirate and give us chase, and we all knew that in that case there would be nothing for us but to die like brave men, with arms in our hands, after the best fight we could make, or be murdered in cold blood after probably the most brutal torture. As the boat flew over the rollers, and I bent low with every stroke, this thought flashed through my mind just once, and after that I thought of nothing but the work before us, every faculty of mind and body being absorbed in the one idea of shooting those breakers and reaching the shore. Nearer and nearer we drew to what every man of us knew to be at the best an even chance of life or death ; for a broken oar, a single false stroke, a single turn of the wrist on the helm, would certainly swamp the boat and leave us at the mercy of the undertow. But I do not believe there was one of us who gave that a thought. And still no boat from the schooner, the murdering devils being evidently too busy with their bloody employment to notice us in the thick atmosphere, and their lookout no doubt intent on looking seaward for sails. As we climbed the crest of a long curling swell, old Futtocks glanced sideways and said to me, “ Keep her steady so, sir. Now all thegither, my hearties ! ” The pinnace shot upward on the roller, the men feathering to prevent the oars from being wrenched from their hands. For an instant we seemed to hang motionless on the top of the green slope of water, and then, with one tremendous effort which buckled the oar blades until I thought they must snap, we spun forward on the now receding wave, and struck the beach with a shock that jerked us from the thwarts and left the pinnace stranded within a fathom of the old wreck. No orders were needed by the well-drilled Nightingales, and the next moment we were dragging the boat over the wet sand to the wreck, bending low by her sides so as to make as little show as possible. It is taking me very much longer to write all this — or at least it seems so now — than it did for us to haul the pinnace behind the wreck, which concealed her completely, open the arm-locker and buckle on cutlasses, each man sticking two brace of pistols in his belt, and throw ourselves flat behind the scrub-covered sand-hills to await the course of events with such patience as we could muster. There could be no certainty that we had not been seen, and now that the excitement was over the men lay resting on the sand, all breathless from their terrible exertions. A breaker of water was cautiously opened, and while the others were eagerly drinking I got out my telescope, and, stretched at full length on the sand, brought it to bear on the brig. What I saw I have no heart to describe in detail on these sheets, and I would to God I could blot out utterly the memory of it that haunts me still after all these years. Sufficient to say that what that glass revealed, indistinct as it was from the distance, worked in me a change which I never could have believed possible in a nature such as mine. There was a fascination in the horrid sight that glued my eye to the lens. To lie there helplessly, an eyewitness to cold-blooded, deliberate, and diabolical murder, was the most fearful experience of my life, absolutely powerless as I was to raise a hand in succor of the wretched victims, and even now I can scarce control myself to write of it. As I brought the brig into focus and realized what was doing on her deck, a cold, clammy sweat broke out upon my forehead, a deathly sickness came over me, and my heart almost stopped its beating; and then, us the reaction came and a great rage took entire possession of me, I could scarce repress a scream of impotent fury. Then every tremor left me, and I could feel myself hardening like scorching leather, until each muscle and sinew in my body was strained to its utmost tension, as if locked in a death-struggle with some ferocious beast. Indeed, the beast that lurks in all our natures was so roused within me that I believe I could have sunk my teeth in the throats of those wretches and drunk their spouting blood; and I would have given all the broad acres of Wambadee to have been on that deck, with cutlass drawn and a score of brave fellows at my back. And then I, who in my wildest mood have ever shrunk from profanity, dashed the glass from my hand and sprang to my feet, shaking my clenched fist like a maniac, and hurling at the cowardly devils a storm of such curses as it makes my blood creep to remember. And I do remember with a marvelous distinctness things that at the moment I neither heard nor saw. A flock of little sandpipers ran out on the beach close on the line of receding water, scurrying back as the frothy surf came in upon them. Some white terns and gray-backed gulls were calmly flying about and circling in the glancing sunlight, and a large shark was paddling and splashing as he fished among the shallows, while the scream of an eagle came from the sky above me, where his white head and tail were flashing like silver as he slowly wheeled in the rays of the morning sun. But I was suddenly gripped by four brawny arms and dragged down into sense and concealment, and I lay there glaring and almost foaming at the mouth as the glass was passed from hand to hand, and curses, such as only the fo’castle can boast of, gave vent to the feelings of the men. I honestly believe that the boat, which a moment before we had so much dreaded, would have been hailed with cheers by the brave fellows, who, like myself, would have asked for nothing better than a chance to avenge that outrage on humanity.

“ God in heaven ! it’s a woman ! ” yelled the man who had the glass, and as I snatched it from his hand the truehearted British tar, hard and rough as the ship’s hawser, burst into tears and sobbed like a child. I could see something projecting from the rail of the brig, and on it a white figure with fluttering drapery that moved forward in short jerks as men prodded it with pikes. Then there was a great splash, and still I must look. Another splash, from the stern of the brig this time, and a small black object appeared in the water, apparently a man swimming. The next instant there was a flash from the schooner’s deck, a puff of white smoke drifted seaward on the wind, and the black thing was gone. Just beyond the breakers I could see a sharp black blade cutting the water with a swift, steady motion towards the vessels. Then another, and still another appeared close behind it, and there was no more paddling and splashing where the shark had been fishing awhile ago. Had these ravenous monsters some mysterious instinct by which they knew of the ghastly work that was going on at such a distance ? I closed the glass deliberately and put it in my pocket. Without a word I sat down on the sand and began to load my pistols, putting two bullets into each, and carefully picking and wiping the flints. Every man at once followed my example; and it was like the sudden breaking of a spell, the mere act of doing something suggestive of hostile action seeming to relieve the fearful tension. None of us could guess how it all was to end, but the consciousness of being well armed and able to make a good fight put new vigor into us all, and we began calmly to discuss the situation. By this time we felt certain that we had not been seen, and as there was little likelihood of the pirates coming ashore, except in pursuit of us, we felt easy on that score. But we were not in a talkative humor, and no unnecessary words were said. The condition of things was not conducive to appetite, but as we had put off from the ship without breakfasting, a bag of biscuit and a kid of boiled junk had been put into the boat for the crew, and the ward-room steward had lowered in for my use a hamper of cold provisions and a couple of bottles of wine, with a jug of special Hollands. These, in default of any more substantial enemy, we proceeded to attack, and the taste of the food seemed to kindle up our hunger, so that a pretty hearty meal soon brought all of our manhood back to us.

I knew that the island was very narrow at one point, and it came to my mind that if we could get the pinnace into the backwater we could make the upper end of Sullivan’s Island and reach Charles Town in time to give the alarm and start an expedition to capture the murderous villains whom we had caught red - handed in the very act of most atrocious piracy. After a short consultation with old Futtocks, we decided to leave the seamen and the marine to keep a sharp lookout, while we two should cautiously crawl through the scrub on an exploring tour. As we worked on painfully through the myrtles and sawpalmettos, the utter hopelessness of my plan became more and more evident. Although our craft was not really a pinnace, she was a long ten-oared boat such as usually goes — though incorrectly — by that name, and even a full crew of able seamen could not possibly have dragged her across those bush-covered sand-hills. Indeed, how we six men, four being just out of hospital and one more than sixty years old, had ever hauled her to where she then lay is a mystery solvable only by the old saw that “ Needs must when the devil drives ; ” and I began to doubt whether, that necessity being over, we should ever get her back into the water without the help of a spring-tide, for which this was not the season. However, I said nothing, and after much toiling we managed to cross the ridge, this proving to be very narrow, and found ourselves on the back beach, to the great dismay of some thousands of those strange, small crabs called “ fiddlers,” that scuttled away to their holes in the mud, holding up their enormous right claws from which that name is given them. There, sure enough, was the narrow inlet, and right across it the Sullivan’s Island shore, thickly overgrown with myrtles making down close to a narrow strip of beach, on which were feeding a flock of those birds, with long and curving bills, known as Spanish curlews. But we could not hope even to swim across, it being impossible to reach the water on account of the quicksands and the soft pluff mud. There was nothing for it but to get back as quickly as we might to the men and wait for night to hide us ; and so back we went, with what speed we could make, and with very bad consequences to our smallclothes. We had been gone something more than an hour, and as we came out into the open our surprise may be imagined at finding neither brig nor schooner in sight. The mystery was soon explained by the men, whom we found still concealing themselves behind the sand-hills. Just after we had left them, they saw the schooner cast off from the brig and drift away from her on the current. The wretches had finished their horrid work, and afterwards scuttled the ill-fated craft ; for in a little while she began to settle by the head, and then suddenly heeled over to starboard, her stern cocking up out of water, and, plunging her bows, went down all standing, leaving nothing to show that she had ever been except a few hencoops, hatches, and other light hamper that the glass showed tossing on the swirling sea. But dreadful as is always such a sight to a sailor’s eyes, it was an actual relief to us after all the horrors we had witnessed that morning.

Meanwhile there was some great commotion on board the schooner. Every rag of canvas disappeared like magic, and even her bare topmasts were unfidded and sent down. Two boats were lowered, and our Nightingales believed that our time had come at last. They crawled behind the wreck, determined to stand them off while the powder should last, and then “ Boarders away ! ” for a deathcharge with cutlasses. But as the villainous craft swung round, and longsweeps, like a spider’s legs, came thrusting through her ports, it was seen that the boats were towing her shoreward, helped for all they were worth by the steady pushing of her crew; and, sure enough, there she was, creeping stealthily inshore towards a clump of tall palmettos that we could just make out to the north of us, whether on our island or not we could not tell. I have already said that I am no coward, but my heart went into my sea-boots as I looked at her, when a thought suddenly struck me. Had something frightened these sea-tigers from their prey, and were they sneaking in for concealment in some well-known hiding-place until the danger should be over? Jumping to my feet, I swept the horizon with the glass, and, right enough, there was a blur of white against the blue of the sky, — the upper canvas of a large ship, still hull down, in the distance! I passed the glass to Futtocks, and the old fellow looked through it so long that the blur became to the naked eye a distinct patch of white canvas before he jumped into the air and cracked his heels together in a regular fo’castle hornpipe step, shouting, “ Glory to God ! it’s the auld Nightingale hersel’ ! I ’d swear to the set o’ thae to’gallant yards outen a whole fleet ! ” Then, shaking both fists at the schooner that was crawling inshore, like some huge venomous insect, as fast as sweeps and tow-lines could take her, he yelled, “ We ’ve got ye noo, ye damned murtherin’ deevils! ye bloody, shark-hearted dogs o’ hell! ye womankillin’ scum o’ the scuppers ! I doot na ye did n’t knaw that Nightingales have claws, but ye ’ll knaw it noo ! It ’s jolly fun ye have drowndin’ honest sailormen, is it? But we ’ll dress your ship for ye, we will, an’ we ’ll man your yards for ye, too, wi’ ane o’ ye hangin’ frae every earring, fore an’ aft, up to the royals ! ” Exactly how this threat was to be enforced on a schooner-rigged craft we did not stop to inquire, for the ship was looming larger every minute, sailing close up to the wind on her larboard bow, which was precisely where we wanted it to cross her track before she could make the harbor. There was nothing to fear from the pirate, who was quite too busy with his own affairs to notice us, and who would not dare to send a shot after us, his object being evidently to conceal himself behind the palmettos until the king’s ship should be safely out of sight; so, at least, we thought. But opinions sometimes differ. How we got the pinnace down the beach and afloat we could no more tell than we could how we had ever dragged her ashore, but it seemed like half a lifetime before we were once more pulling through the surf. It was tougher work than getting in, but we cleared the white water safely. We then stepped the mast, ran up the sail, and headed straight for the ship’s forefoot, she being now full in sight under easy sail, all unconscious of the awful tragedy that she might so easily have prevented. Suddenly we saw her come about on the other tack, and at the same moment, almost, her royals were set, the reefs shaken out of her courses, and in less time than I can write it the lines of her spars and rigging were lost in a cloud of canvas. The next minute there was a dull boom behind us, and a round-shot came ricochetting over the water within a half cable-length of our stern. A glance at the schooner showed her with topmasts in place and all sail set, the Jolly Roger fluttering at her peak, and the long black pennant blowing out from her truck as stiff as a piece of painted tin, while her slender bowsprit pointed out to sea and her long upper spars bent like whip-sticks before the wind. A flash from her stern-port, and another shot came dancing after us ; but it fell shorter than the first, for she was fast leaving us in her reckless effort to outrun the ship. Evidently the corvette’s movements had told the pirate that he was sighted, and that, all chance of concealment being over, his only safety lay in a clean pair of heels. In sheer bravado he had shown his colors to the king’s ship, probably thinking that he could easily shake her off, as no doubt he had often rid himself of others like her. But it looked as if we were to be left in the lurch altogether, when the Nightingale came up into the wind, backed her sails, and lay to waiting for us to run alongside. In another half-hour we were on board, our fearful story was told, and the corvette, whose previous chase proved to be only an innocent slaver, was dashing the foam from her cutwater in full chase of the schooner, with the wind on her best point; the pirate evidently making for the dangerous shoals off the North Carolina coast, where her light draught would easily enable her to give us the slip.

I need not dwell on the next five or six hours, during which the ship was got ready for the desperate job in hand. The horrible story had spread like wildfire among our crew, and every face I looked at was glowing with the excitement of the hunt, while the hard, determined set of every mouth and the glitter of every eye showed the bitter hatred such as only an honest sailorman can feel towards his natural enemy the pirate. Even the little reefers gripped their dirk handles and fairly shrieked the orders they were sent to carry. The men looked lovingly at the boarding-pikes and battle-axes which they were setting in their racks about the masts, and at the piles of shrapnel, cases of canister, and heaps of bar and chain shot that they were putting handily in place near the guns. Lord William had called me into his cabin, and listened gravely to the details of the bloody sights I had seen that morning. “ It must be that infernal devil Gonzago Gomez,” he said, “ in the Terror. The murderous wretch has been for two years the scourge of the Spanish seas. I have chased him twice before, and he has slipped me each time, but I think he is on his last cruise now. I will follow him to New York if he keeps the sea, or cut him out with the boats if he runs inshore. He’s not at home on these shoals and flats as he is among the keys of the southern Floridas, and he would not be here now if he had known of your fortunate requisition on this ship, which he thinks is cruising south of the Barbados.”

It was about four o’clock in the afternoon, the chase having been constantly in sight, that the lookout forward sung out something, and a middy came tumbling aft, in his excitement almost forgetting to salute, with the report that the pirate seemed to be aground about three miles away on the larboard quarter. As we sprang up the companionladder to the deck, we saw at a glance what had happened. The treacherous shoals along this coast stretch far out to sea, and the schooner, keeping purposely as near in as she dared, had, sure enough, run aground on one of them, and four boats were already tugging at her as she lay rolling and lurching in the swell. “ Crowd on everything, Mr. Maidman,” shouted Lord William to the lieutenant in charge of the deck, “ and send two men to heave the lead ! Open on him as soon as the range will allow. If it is Gomez,” he added, turning to me, “ he ’ll fire his magazine and blow her out of the water, if he fails to get her off ; but I am greatly mistaken if he does n’t wait to make a fight first, in the hope of doing us some mischief before he goes.”

We were fairly surging through the water now, the ship lying over until her lee scuppers were running with the seas she was shipping, every stayline and stu’nsail boom straining with bellying canvas, and still the pirate’s boats were tugging at her, first one way, then another. Nearer and nearer we drew, the leadsmen chanting their monotonous song, until we could see the schooner’s decks swarming with bustling, hurrying forms, and one wildlooking figure clinging to the foremast shrouds as he leaned over apparently directing the efforts of the men in the boats. “ Try the range, Mr. Maidman, with the bow - chaser,” said his lordship. In a moment more the long eighteen-pounder was trained, a cloud of white smoke and a heavy report followed, and a round-shot went skipping over the water, falling far short of the stranded vessel. There was no reply, and a moment after three of the boats ranged close to the schooner’s side and were soon swinging at the davits, while their crews leaped to the deck. One boat, however, seemed to be parleying with the man in the shrouds; then it headed shorewards and shot away from the schooner, the men bending desperately to their oars. It was a tenoared gig, fully manned, and was steered, as the glass made out, by a man in a red shirt, with his head bound up in a handkerchief. This boat had gotten about two cable-lengths away when a puff of smoke rose up, and before the dull report could reach us we saw that a heavy charge of grape had gone crashing into her, sweeping the oarsmen from the thwarts, splintering the oars, and crushing in the planking like an eggshell. The red-shirted coxswain sprang up and fired a pistol at the schooner, and the next minute was struggling in the water along with three of his men, while the shattered boat went down with all the others, who had evidently been killed or hopelessly wounded by the discharge. “ By Heaven ! that’s pirate’s discipline with a vengeance ! ” said an officer who stood near me. “ Those scoundrels were trying to save their bacon by deserting, and the desperate villain turned his guns on them. See there ! at that rate there ’ll not be many for the yard-arm.” As he spoke a smaller puff spurted out, as from a musket-shot, and red-shirt flung up his hands and disappeared. A second man, who had nearly reached the vessel, went down, probably helped by a pistol-ball, while the other two swam to the schooner’s stern and clambered up ropes that were flung to them from the deck. But just then a shot came howling over our quarter-deck, and then another slap through our forecourse. The corvette’s long bow-chaser bellowed out a reply, and this time we saw the splinters fly just above the schooner’s water-line amidships. “ I think we may give him the broadside now,” said Lord William, as calmly as if he had said, “ I think we ’ll have another bottle, steward.” The order was passed, “ Luff her up ! steady so ! ” to the man at the wheel. The ship swung half round and heeled over to starboard as her larboard battery spoke out all together. For a moment the heavy smoke cloud hid everything from sight, and as it slowly drifted away we saw the pirate schooner a hopeless wreck, her after-bulwarks gone, her mainmast cut clean in halves, the upper part hanging in a tangle of ropes and broken spars, and her foresail flapping unmanageably, the boom shattered by a roundshot. No colors were visible, but a moment later a man went shinning up the foremast, and the black flag fluttered out in the wind as he nailed it to the topmast. Had it been the colors of any nation under heaven, our brave fellows would have cheered themselves hoarse in honor of a gallant enemy ; but they only cursed more deeply. The schooner, being hard aground, was of course entirely at our mercy, — or would have been if we had had any, — but the corvette was obliged to come about again to bring her starboard battery into action, and this manœuvre left us for a moment exposed to a raking fire ; the range, by this time, was short enough for grape, and the murderous pirates were not slow to seize the advantage. Their long stern gun spoke out as our bows swung past, with a roar which told that they had crammed it to the muzzle, and a storm of shot swept the deck from stem to stern, cutting shrouds, splintering woodwork, and killing three poor fellows outright, four more having to be carried, badly wounded, to the cockpit. One of these was poor old Futtocks, whose right arm was smashed at the elbow ; but the game old sea-dog shook his left fist at the wreck as he passed down the shivered companionway, and growled out, “ There’s one left to help run ye up to the yard-arm, ye bloody, murtherin’ deevils ! Drown sailormen like blind puppies, will ye ? Stretchin’ your craigs is too good for such bloody dogfish ! Ye ought to he drownded in bilge water ! ” “There ’ll be none to hang when this row is over,” remarked Lord William, as he lowered his glass. “ If he does n’t blow up his magazine, I ’ll do it for him. To board him would be only a useless sacrifice of the lives of our brave fellows. There ! what did I tell you ! ”

A heavy report came from the schooner, as a cloud of smoke and fire, mixed with huge splinters, tore up her deck. She lurched over until her coppers showed above the water, and righted again, seeming little the worse for the explosion. ” By Heaven, he’s failed ! thrown away his last trump and lost the rubber ! ” said his lordship. “ Bear down on him, Mr. Maidman, and give him all you’ve got.” We were now so near that we could see the terrible effects of our fire. The pirate’s deck was littered with dead and dying men. Her guns were all silenced, but the few wretches left alive began to open on us with small arms, which, however, did no damage. The next instant the Nightingale’s broadside roared out on the evening air, and was followed by a fearful crash of timbers. As the smoke cleared off, we saw where the schooner had been only a shapeless mass of smashed wood and ragged cordage, the foremast gone, the hull torn and gaping and cut down almost to the water-line. In deeper water the whole thing would have gone to the bottom. The sea was littered with wreckage, but the bowsprit still projected from a few square feet of the forward deck that remained clinging to the stem. On the heel of the spar two men were standing : one, a large, redbearded ruffian, his face covered with smut and blood ; the other, a small, wiry, black - whiskered, tawny - skinned Spaniard, with large gold hoops in his ears and an old-fashioned bell-muzzled blunderbuss in his hands. The burly villain suddenly jerked a white handkerchief from his belt and waved it toward the Nightingale. The next moment, before he could know what had hurt him, he went down with a great splash into the sea, riddled with bullets from the Spaniard’s gun, his clothing on fire from the burning powder. A musket-shot flashed from the corvette’s foretop, and Gomez, the scourge of the Caribbean, dropped into the hungry water with a bullet through his brain. The Terror and her bloody-hearted commander were but a nightmare story of the past, and the lusty cheers that went up from our deck were the strangest Nightingale’s song that the world had ever heard.

Robert Wilson.