"Fire!" cried the mate.
Crash went the guns! The iron hurtled through the air, and the splintering of wood, as the metal struck the barge, was distinctly heard amid the groans and shrieks of the vigilantes.
In one moment it was all over. Morris and Martinez rushed to the deck.
"What's the matter, Pardon?" asked the former.
"Nothin', cap'n—cap'n, nothin'," answered the mate. "Only there aint quite so many greasers in the world at present, as there was five minutes since. Morena broke his parole, and tried to board us by surprise, and I gin' him my starboard battery—that's all."
"Then I'm off for blue water!" cried the captain.
"And I for the mountains!" said Martinez. "The mules are all packed and the horses saddled. The vigilantes must wear sharp spurs if they catch us."
It was a hurried parting—that of the smuggler and his bride with the captain and mate of the Zanthe. But they got safely on shore, and the whole band effected their escape.
The Zanthe spread her wings, and some days afterwards was crossing the equator. She was never known again as a free trader. The captain and mate had both "made their piles," and after arriving at the Atlantic states retired from sea. Pardon G. Simpkins took up his residence in Boston, and during the late war with Mexico, was very prominent in his denunciations of that republic, and very liberal in his donations to the Massachusetts regiment, to the members of which his parting admonition was, to "give them greasers fits."