me, received a ball in his side from one of my sailors, who fortunately
had observed what was going on and had come to my rescue. Without
waiting an instant to see what had become of the man who had played me
this murderous trick, I called my men together, launched the boats, and
put out to sea.

By this time the sea-breeze had set in, and I could see the vessel I had
been watching, though still a considerable distance from the shore, was
trimming her sails to the sea-breeze, and steering straight in for the
very spot where I had been concealed. Signal after signal was made to
her by her friends on the shore, in the shape of lighted fires (not much
avail in the daytime) and the hoisting of flags, &c., but she seemed
utterly to disregard the action of her friends. Satisfied, I imagine,
that she had all but finished her voyage, seeing no cruiser and
unsuspicious of boats, on she came.[1]

We got almost alongside of her before the people on board seemed to see
us. When she did, evidently taken by surprise, she put her helm down,
and throwing all her sails aback, snapped some of her lighter spars,
thus throwing everything into confusion--confusion made worse by the
fact that, with the view of immediate landing, two hundred or three
hundred of the niggers had been freed from their confinement and were
crowded on the deck. Taking advantage of this state of things we made
our capture without a shot being fired.

In fact everything was done, as sailors say, 'before you could look
round you,' the man at the helm replaced by one of my men, the crew
bundled down into the slave-hold to give them a taste of its horrors,
and the sails trimmed for seaward instead of towards the land. The
captain, who seemed a decent fellow, cried like a child. He said: 'If I