“‘Ready about,’ was the cry.
“Ah! Nie, my boy, it was a beautiful sight, and a supreme moment.
“We thundered down on that devoted pirate. She never even divined our intention. We might overwhelm her perhaps, she thought. She prepared to out-manoeuvre us. Then all seemed to become confusion on board her. Mind, she was over-manned to begin with, her rigging too was badly damaged, and her decks hampered with her dead and dying.
“In a minute more we had hurtled into her. We actually cut her in two; she sank before our eyes, almost before we could sheer off.”
At this part of his yarn, poor old Captain Roberts stopped. I feel sure he was thinking of that dreadful scene; that, long ago though it was, he saw again that blood-stained ship sinking beneath the waves, with its living freight, many of them innocent slaves.
He filled his pipe before he resumed.
“Ah, well! poor misguided wretches, to do them justice they died bravely, and cheered wildly as they sank beneath the billows.”
“And so,” I said; “Zareppa escaped even yet.”