654 The Demon Ship. [DEC. 



But there was still so much noise on deck, that I in vain essayed to make 

 my Voice heard ; and for the trap-door, it defied all my efforts it was 

 immovable. At this crisis, the ship, which had hitherto been springing 

 and reeling with the fierce fire she had received from her adversary, and 

 the motion of her own guns, suddenly began to settle into an awful and 

 suspicious quiescence. But the victors were apparently too busy in the 

 work of retribution to heed this strange and portentous change. / per- 

 ceived, however, only too clearly that the Demon was about finally to 

 settle for sinking. After the lapse of a few seconds, it seemed that the 

 conquerors themselves became at last aware of the treacherous gulph 

 that was preparing to receive them ; and a hundred voices exclaimed, 

 " To the sloop ! to the sloop ! The ship is going down the ruffians 

 are sinking her !" I now literally called out until my voice became a 

 hoarse scream. I struck violently against the top of our sinking dun- 

 geon. I pushed the trap-door with my whole force. All was in vain. 

 I heard the sailors rushing eagerly to their own vessel, and abandoning 

 that of the pirates to destruction. I took Margaret's hand, and held it 

 up towards heaven, as if it could better than my own plead there for us. 

 All was silent. Not a sound was heard in the once fiercely-manned 

 Demon, save the rushing of the waters in at the holes where she had 

 been scuttled by her desperate crew. It almost seemed that determined 

 not to survive her capture she were eager to suck in the billows which 

 would sink her to oblivion. At last, as if she had received her fill, she 

 began to go down with a rapidity which seemed to send us, in an instant, 

 many feet deeper beneath the waves, and I now expected every moment 

 to hear them gather over the deck, and then overwhelm us for ever. 

 I uttered a prayer, and clasped Margaret in my arms. But no voice, no 

 sigh, proceeded from the companion of my grave. Her hand was cold, 

 and her pulse quiet ; and I deemed that the spirit had warred with, and 

 overcome its last enemy, ere our common grave yawned to receive us. 



Voices were heard ; weights seemed to be removed from the trap-door ! 

 It was opened ; and the words " Good Heaven ! the fellow is right ; 

 they are here, sure enough !" met my almost incredulous ear. I beheld 

 a British officer, a sailor or two, and Girod with his hands tied behind 

 him. I held up my precious burthen, who was received into the arms 

 of her compatriots, and then, like one in a dream, sprang from my long 

 prison. Perhaps it might be well that Margaret's eye was half-closed 

 in death at that moment ; for the deck of the sinking Demon offered no 

 spectacle for woman's eye. There lay the mangled bodies of our late 

 dreaded jailers, their fast-stiffening countenances still retaining, in cold 

 death itself, that expression of daring and brute ferocity which seemed 

 effaceable only by the absolute decomposition of their hardened features. 

 I shall never forget the scene of desolation presented by that deck, lying 

 like a vast plank or raft of slaughtered bodies, almost level with the 

 sea, whose waters dashed furiously over it, and then receding from their 

 still ineffectual attempt to overwhelm the vessel, returned all dyed with 

 crimson to the ocean ; while the sun, setting in a stormy and angry sky, 

 threw his rays for the last time in lurid and fitful gleams on the 

 ruined Demon. 



A deep, and, as it seemed, long-pent sigh escaped from the bosom of 

 Margaret when the fresh breath of heaven first played on her white 

 cheek. I would have thanked her brave deliverers have gazed on her 

 to see if life still returned but the sea was gaining fast on us, and I had 



