Nearly equal in number, but far superior in personal strength, and stimulated by their sense of danger, our fellows rushed onward, carrying all before them to the quarter-deck.

Here the Frenchmen rallied, and for some minutes had rather the advantage, until the mate, turning one of their guns against them, prepared to sweep them down in a mass.

Then it was that they ceased their fire and cried out for quarter,--all save their captain, a short, thick-set fellow, with a grizzly beard and mustache, who, seeing his men fall back, turned on them one glance of scowling indignation, and rushing forward, clove our boatswain to the deck with one blow.

Before the example could have been followed, he lay a bloody corpse upon the deck; while our people, roused to madness by the loss of a favorite among the men, dashed impetuously forward, and dealing death on every side, left not one man living among their unresisting enemies.

My story is soon told now.