It was broad daylight when I awoke; I took my spy-glass, and looking
round the horizon, discovered a vessel several miles off, standing
towards me. This gave me fresh spirits.
I made a raw breakfast, and drank plenty of water as before. The wind,
which was very light, increased a little. The vessel came nearer, and I
made her out to be a schooner. In two hours she was close to me, and I
waved my hat, and hallooed as loud as I could.
The schooner was full of men, and steered close to me--she was a
beautiful craft, and, although the wind was so light, glided very fast
through the water, and I could not help thinking that she was the pirate
vessel which the frigate had been in chase of.
It appeared as if they intended to pass me, and I hallooed, "Schooner,
ahoy! Why don't you send a boat on board?"
I must say, that when the idea struck me that she was a pirate vessel,
my heart almost failed me.
Shortly afterwards the schooner rounded to and lowered a boat, which
pulled to the vessel. The boat's crew were all negroes.
One of them said, "Jump in, you white boy; next jump he take be into the
shark's mouth," continued the man, grinning, as he addressed himself to
the others in the boat.
I got into the boat, and they rowed on board the schooner. I did then
think that I was done for; for what mercy could I expect, being a king's
officer, from pirates, which the words of the negro convinced me they
were?
As soon as I was alongside of the schooner, they ordered me to go up the
side, which I did, with my spy-glass in my hand. I leaped from the
gunwale down on the deck, and found myself on board of an armed vessel,
with a crew wholly composed of blacks.
I was rudely seized by two of them, who led me aft to where a negro
stood apart from the rest. A more fierce, severe, determined-looking
countenance, I never beheld. He was gigantic in stature and limbed like
the Farnesian Hercules.
"Well, boy, who are you?" said he, "and how came you on board of that
vessel?"