The deck of the Scorpion, the brig that had suffered so much in the late encounter, presented a scene of awful confusion; the masts and spars dragging over her sides; the cut shrouds and rigging; the loose blocks and splinters lumbering her deck, covered with blood, which, pouring through the scupper-holes, was dyeing the water with its crimson tide; the groans of the wounded; the bodies of the dead—fifty of her crew having been killed and crippled—bore testimony to the dreadful effects of the slaver’s fire.

Captain De Vere, the commander of the brig, whose inability to return effectually the schooner’s fire had rendered him nearly frantic, was excited to frenzy by the insulting bravado of Willis, when he hoisted his burgee, and covered with blood from a splinter-wound in his forehead, in a voice nearly inarticulate with passion, he was giving orders to cut away the shrouds attached to his floating spars, and urging his men to clear up the deck, as the sloop, crossing his bow, hailed—

“Brig, ahoy! What brig is that?”

“Her Britannic Majesty’s brig Scorpion. What ship is that?”

“Her Britannic Majesty’s sloop-of-war Vixen. How the deuce did you get in such a pickle?”

Captain De Vere was, with all his conceit, foppishness, and effeminate appearance, as brave as steel; and having publicly boasted of his intentions in regard to Willis’s vessel, it was with the greatest mortification, and breathing deep though inarticulate vows of vengeance against him if they ever met again, he informed his superior officer that he had been so cut up by the gun of the little schooner.

The Maraposa was still in sight; and De Vere desired the sloop to go in pursuit of her, and leave him to look out for himself; but the commander of the Vixen saw the brig stood so much in need of his assistance that he rounded-to, and backing his maintop-sail, sent his boats, with men, spars, and rigging, to assist in refitting the Scorpion.

By the strenuous exertions of both crews, the brig was all a-taunto by night; and having removed her wounded on board the sloop, both vessels made sail, under a press of canvas, in the direction the slaver had last been seen.

The look-outs were stimulated to increased vigilance, by the offer of a reward of five pounds to the one who should first discover the schooner; but they made land a little to the northward of the Ambriz River, without being able to see her. Determined to intercept the slaver as she returned, the two vessels separated, the sloop sailing to the northward, and the brig to the southward, intending to cruise up and down the coast until the schooner sailed.

Willis, in the meantime, had safely completed his passage, and when his pursuers made the land, was at anchor twenty miles up a river that makes into the ocean, a degree to the south’ard of St. Felipe de Benguela, busily engaged in taking aboard his cargo of four hundred negroes, that had been waiting at the Factory for him.

It would have afforded much food for a reflective mind, that African scene. At the first glance, all was beautiful; the bright and placid river gently rippling through the mangrove-bushes and tree-limbs, that overhung until they touched its surface; the tall and luxurious forest-trees that lined its banks, with an under-growth of flowering shrubs, and gay creeping vines, hanging from bough to bough in fantastical festoons, the branches alive with chattering monkeys, and lively, noisy parrots, and birds whose brilliant plumage, as they flew from perch to perch in the strong light, resembled gold and jewels; the graceful and fairy-like schooner, with the small boats going and returning; and the long, low factory, with its palm roof, just seen through the leaves on the summit of a hill, a little back from the stream, was beautiful—very beautiful.

But on a closer examination, in that bright river were to be seen myriads of hideous, greedy alligators. The luxurious trees afforded refuge for legions of troublesome insects, and noxious reptiles; in the flowering under-growth lurked deadly and venomous serpents; and most of the gay creeping plants were poisonous; the fairy-looking schooner was discovered to be a sink of moral infamy: the small boats were ladened with miserable captives; and even the partly seen Factory was a den of sin and suffering.

The natural and the artificial harmonized well—both charming, lovely, enticing, but equally corrupt, dangerous, and unwholesome.

In eight days the slaver’s living freight was all received on board. The day before, Willis had dispatched Mateo in a small boat to the mouth of the river, for the purpose of seeing if the coast was clear, and that no men-of-war were in sight; for nearly all the slavers that are captured, are caught just as they make out from the rivers, and before they have sea-room enough to enable them to use to advantage their superior sailing qualities.

The mate, on his return, reporting all safe, the schooner got under weigh, and after working down the river, put to sea with a fair wind, and every inch of canvas set that would draw, and steered for the Isle of Cuba—her cargo all being engaged to a negro trader at the eastern end of the island.

The external appearance of the Maraposa was unaltered, still as beautiful and attractive as when we saw her lying at anchor near Havana. But inboard, a great change had taken place; then, the tidy look of every thing, the quiet and careless expression visible on the countenances of her unarmed crew, gave rise to thoughts of peace and tranquillity; even the bright brass cannon seemed more for ornament than for dealing deathly execution. But now, every sailor had thrust in a belt encircling his waist, a brace of heavy pistols; keen cutlasses were ranged in racks around the masts, ready to be grasped in an instant; the long gun was pointed toward the tafferel, her gaping muzzle ready to be trained on either gangway; in the hold, seen through the main-hatchway, was a black, compact mass of human beings, crowded as close together as it was possible to get them, the light striking upon their constantly rolling eyes, made them appear spots of moving fire; groans, awful and horrible, the sounds of retching, and the incessant clanking of fetters, smote upon the ear. An odor the most nauseating and disgusting, (caused by the confinement of so many in a space so small,) filled the air, and would have overpowered the nerves of any but those accustomed to it; but upon the hardened crew, it had no more effect than upon the schooner, who, rushing through the water with the rapidity of a dolphin, sped on toward her port.

The Maraposa had succeeded in making an offing of about two hundred miles without seeing any thing, when the wind that had been steadily freshening for some time, increased so much that she was obliged to take in her lighter canvas; still increasing, she was compelled to furl all but her fore and aft sails, and had just made every thing snug as they discovered the Scorpion, with her yards braced up, and under close-reefed topsails, about five miles distant, and standing across their bows.

To keep the schooner on in the course she was running would bring her still nearer the brig; and Willis, thinking he might pass without being seen from the Englishman, put his helm a starboard, and brought his vessel by the wind, heading to the south’ard. The sail he carried, going free, was too much for the schooner close-hauled, and he was obliged to close-reef his fore-sail, balance-reef his main-sail, and take the bonnet off his jib, to keep the Maraposa from burying herself.

The look-outs on board the Scorpion were too alert, sharpened as their sights had been by the promised reward, to let the schooner pass unobserved, and in a few moments the brig was seen to ware ship, and shake a reef out of her topsails, and setting whole courses, the brig ploughing through the waves, now burying her bows in the huge billows, as if she were going to dive to the bottom of the ocean, and then rising on their summits until the bright copper was visible the whole length of her keel, seemed to spurn their support altogether, laboring and rolling heavily through the water, she breasted her way, and in consequence of the greater amount of canvas she was enabled to carry, gained on the Maraposa. Willis watched her for some time, hoping to see her courses, that were distended to their utmost, carried away; but the duck, strong, heavy, and new, did its part manfully, and finding his hope was groundless, he endeavored to make more sail upon the schooner.

“Shake the reefs out of the fore-sail.”

“Hoist away the halyards.”

Commands that were executed as soon as uttered. But hardly had the halyards been belayed ere, with a report like a cannon, the sail split, and flying from the bolt-ropes, sailed to leeward like a wreath of smoke. A new fore-sail was soon bent. The trifling delay gave the Scorpion another advantage, but the sea was so rough that neither vessel could make rapid headway, and it was not until an hour before sunset that the brig was within gun-shot of the schooner.

She at once opened upon her with the weather-bow gun, and the ball striking the slaver just forward the main-mast, crashed through her deck, and caused heart-rending and appalling shrieks and yells to ascend from the poor devils it wounded in her hold. Shot followed shot with rapidity from the Scorpion’s bow-guns; and occasionally yawing, she would let fly with her weather-broadside, losing distance, however, every time she put her wheel up.

Willis refrained from firing, fearful of diminishing the distance by broaching-too, and kept silently on his course until night, when he could no longer distinguish the brig, and could only make out her position by the flashes of her guns, he suddenly put up his helm, eased off his sheets, and standing off directly before the wind for a few moments, lowered away every thing, leaving nothing to be seen but the schooner’s two tall masts, which were not visible one hundred yards in the dusky light.

The schooner’s spars had luckily escaped all injury, though her deck and bulwarks were a good deal shattered, and several of her men, and a number of the negroes, who suffered from their compact position, had been killed. Willis was so rejoiced to find his masts safe that he did not mind the other damage, and waiting until the flash of a gun told him the brig had passed by, and was still pursuing the course he had been steering, without observing his dodge, he bore away before the wind with all the sail he could carry, and arrived at his destination without again seeing the Scorpion.

Captain De Vere stood on the same course all night, and was surprised in the morning to see nothing of the slaver: cursing the carelessness of his men, he catted all the look-outs, and stopped the grog of the whole crew. And savage at having been thus baffled, he shaped his course toward Havana; determined to capture Willis on his next voyage, if he had to carry all the masts out of his brig.

——