Thus hemmed in between our two parties the
buccaneers saw 'twas vain to contend longer. They flung down their
arms and cried (in many tongues) for quarter; and within five
minutes of our first setting foot on deck we had them securely
battened down below.
And now having accomplished, by fortune's favor, my first duty, I
resolved to make all speed after the fellows who had landed, hoping
fervently that the noise of our engagement had not reached their
ears and put them on their guard. There was hot work before us, I
well knew, if they numbered forty, as I had reason to believe. I
could not leave the brig wholly unguarded; yet I was loath to
diminish my own little company; in the end I decided to leave a
boatswain's mate in command of a party of five (three who had had a
ducking and two who had received slight hurts in the fight) and to
take Joe and the other eighteen hot-foot to Penolver.
I had left instructions with Fincham on our brig to sail into the
inlet in the morning to support us, and I told the boatswain's mate
to communicate with her as soon as she appeared. Thus I had no
anxiety about the security of the prize and the prisoners during my
absence.
These arrangements made, we set off for the shore, taking two of
the six men to row back to the brig the boats from which the
buccaneers had landed, which we found hauled up on the beach, but
no one in charge of them. Either they had been left unattended
because the leader had no fears for their safety, or the men set to
watch had taken alarm from our doings on the brig and had decamped.
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