blood on his face, and he appeared very pale. His struggles had gradually settled him up to the chin in the mire he was shrieking miserablyhe sunk over the mouth-his exertions to escape increased-the mud covered his nose he began to cough and splutter for breath-while he struggled hard with his arms to keep himself above the surface-had he been one of the best swimmers alive -alas! he was now neither on earth nor in water-his eyes were still visible. Father of mercies, let me forget their expression-their hopeless dying glare, as he gradually sunk deeper and deeper into the quag mire. Oh! what a horrible grave! He disappeared, but his hands were still visible-he clasped them together then opened them againthe fingers spread out, and quivered like aspen leaves, as he held them up towards heaven in an attitude of supplication.

By the time the last of our stragglers had dragged their weary limbs into the enclosure, the shouting and firing again waxed warm in the direction of the boats, so we made all sail towards them the instant we had scrambled over the rude stockade, leaving the other wounded Spaniard, who lay in a harder part of the mud, to his fate, notwithstanding the poor fellow's heart-piercing supplication not to be left to perish in so horrible a manner as his comrade, who had just disappeared. We advanced as rapidly as we could, and presently came in sight of this new scene of action. The boats were filled with our people who had been left to guard them, but were still aground, although the flood was fast making. They had evidently made the most desperate attempts to get them afloat, and had been wading up to their waists in the mud. Four white Spaniards were blazing away at them, and at least one hundred and fifty naked black savages were crowding round the head of the creek, and firing from half-a-dozen old rusty muskets, and throwing spears made of some sort of hard wood burnt at the ends, while several were employed cutting down the mangroves and throwing them into the mud, so as to be able to pass over them like a mat, and get at the boats. One or two of the demonlike sa

vages were routing on bullocks' horns, while six or seven had already fallen wounded, and lay bellowing and struggling on the ground before the well-directed fire of our people.

"Advance, Mr Sprawl, for the love of heaven," the midshipman in charge of the party in the boats sung out "advance, or we are lost; our ammunition is almost out."

Our own danger made it sufficiently evident, without this hint, that our only chance of safety was by a desperate effort to drive our opponents back into the wood, and there keep them at bay until the boats floated.

"Ay, ay, my boys," cried I, "keep your fire-don't run short."

"Confound you, don't fire," continued Mr Sprawl," or you will hit some of us," as several of the boat's crew nearest us continued, notwithstanding, to pepper away; then to his own people" Follow me, men; if we don't drive them into the wood," as Mr Brail says, "till the tide makes, we are lost."

"Hurrah!" shouted the brave fellows, "we shall give them a touch of the pike and cutlass, but no firing. -Hurrah."

We charged them, and the black savages and their white leaders were in an instant driven into the recesses of the jungle, but not before we had captured three more of the white Spaniards and seven of their black allies. Our object being in the meantime attained, we now called a halt, and sent back a man to the boats, with orders to advise us the moment they were afloat. Worn out and feeble as most of the party were, from want of food and fatigue, many fell asleep, leaning against trees, or slipped down on the twisted roots of the mangroves. Every thing had continued quiet for about a quarter of an hour, no sound being heard beyond an occasional shout or wild cry in the recesses of the brushwood, when all at once the man we had despatched to the rear, came rushing up to us at the top of his speed.

"The boats will be afloat in ten minutes, sir."

"Thank heaven, thank heaven," I exclaimed.

"But an Eboe canoe," continued the man, suddenly changing my joy into sadness," with more than fifty

people on board, is now paddling up the creek."

"The devil!" exclaimed Mr Sprawl, "are we never to get clear of this infernal corner?" And then recollecting who he was, and where he was, and that the lives of the whole party were dependent on his courage and self-possession, he rose from where he had sat himself down on the root of a bush.

"Men, we must go the right about, and be off to the boats-so send the wounded forward; the officers and marines will bring up the rear. So heave ahead, will ye; but no rushing now-be cool, for the credit of the ship."

The instant we retreated the sound of the negro horns and drums again commenced; the yells rose higher than ever, and dropping shots whistled over-head, clipping off a leaf here and a dry branch there. We sculled along; the noises behind us increasing, until we once more reached the head of the creek. The boats were by this time not afloat exactly, but the advance of the tide had so thinned the mud, that it was clear, if we could once get the people on board, we should have little difficulty in sliding them into deep water. However, the nearest could not be got within boathook length of the bank, and two of the oars being laid out to form a gangway, no sooner did the first seaman step along them, than-crackone gave way, and the poor fellow plumped up to the waist in the mud. If we were to get disabled in our fins, certain destruction must ensue; this was palpable to all of us; so we had to scramble on board through the abominable stinking slime the best way we could, without risking any more of the ash staves. In the mean time the uncouth noises and firing in the rear came nearer and increased. "So now hand the prisoners on board, and place them beside their comrades there," shouted Mr Sprawl. Easier said than done. Taking advantage of the uproar, they had hung back, and now as the first of the savages appeared from under the green trees, evidently with an intention of again attacking us, they fairly turned tail, and before we could gather our wits about us, they were off, and for ever beyond our ken. The last of our people had got on board, all to a poor

boy, who had been badly wounded, indeed ham-strung with a knife, and as he had fainted on the brink from pain and loss of blood, for a moment he had been forgotten. But only for

a moment.

"God help me, God help me," said I, "why, it is poor little Graham, my own servant; shove close to, and let me try to get him on board." The lad spoken of was a slight brown-haired boy, about fifteen years of age. The sound of my voice seemed to revive him; he lifted his head; but the four Spanish prisoners, whom we had secured on board, on the instant, as if moved by one common impulse, made a bound overboard, and although they sank up to the waist, they made a desperate attempt to reach the bank, the leading one, who seemed to have been an officer, shouting out to their allies in the wood, "Camaradas, una golpe bueno, y somos salvados-una golpe fuerte, y somos libres." This was the signal for a general rush of the combined column from out the thicket of black naked savages, led on by the white crew of the slaver. As they rushed down to the brink, the poor wounded lad made a desperate attempt to rise; and as he ran a step or two staggering towards the creek, he looked behind him at the savages, who were advancing with loud shouts. He then with his face as pale as ashes, and lips blue as indigo, and eyes starting from the socket, called out, "For the dear love of Jesus, shove ahead, and save me; Oh! Mr Sprawl, save me. Mr Brail, for God Almighty's sake, don't desert me, Oh sir!" A black savage had rushed forward and seized him— Ifired-he dropped, dragging the boy down with him; and I could see him in his agony try to tear him with his teeth, while the helpless lad struggled with all his might to escape from the dying savage. He did get clear of him, and with a strength that I could not believe he had possessed, he once more got on his legs, and hailed me again; but the uproar was now so loud, and the firing so hot, that I could not hear what he said.

"The boats are afloat, the boats are afloat!" shouted twenty voices at once. At this very moment a negro savage caught the lad round the

waist, another laid hold of him by the hair, and before he could free himself, the latter drew his knife round his neck, and the next instant the trunk, with the blood gushing from the severed arteries, was quivering amongst the mud, while the monster held aloft the bleeding head with its quivering and twitching fea

tures.

"Heaven have mercy on usHeaven have mercy on us," said I, but we were now widening our distance fast, although I could see them strip the body with the speed of the most expert camp-follower; and while the Spaniards on shore were, even under our fire, trying to extricate their comrades, all of them wounded, who were floundering in the slime and ooze, the black allies were equally active in cutting up and mutilating the poor boy with the most demoniacal ferocity, and .. I dare not attempt further description of a scene so replete with horror and abomination. We poled along, with all the little strength that a day of such dreadful incidents, and a climate of the most overpowering heat and fearful insalubrity, had left us. At length the creek widened so as to allow us to ply our oars, when we perceived the large Eboe war-canoe, already mentioned, in the very act of entering the narrow canal we were descending. As we approached, we had an opportunity of observing the equipment of this remarkable craft; it was upwards of sixty feet long, and was manned by forty hands twenty of a side, all plying their great broad-bladed paddles. These men sat close to the gunwale of the vessel on each side, and were sufficiently apart to leave room for upwards of fifty men and women to be stowed amidships. These last were all bound with withes, or some kind of country rope; and although there were no serious or very evident demonstrations of grief amongst them, yet it at once occurred to me, that they were slaves sent down to our black friend's depôt, to await the arrival of the next vessel, or probably intended to have completed the poleacre's cargo. An old white-headed, yellow-skinned negro, bearing the tatooed marks of a high-caste man of his tribe on his square-featured

visage, and having the skin marked as if it had at one time been peeled off his temples on each side, was seated in the bow. He evidently took us for part of the crew of some slaver lying below. He shouted to us, and pointed to his cargo; but we had other fish to fry, and accordingly never relaxed in our pulling, until at five in the afternoon, we were once more on board of the felucca. On musteringwe found seven missing, four of whom I knew had been killed outright, and no fewer than fourteen wounded, some of them seriously enough. The first thing we did was to weigh and drop down out of gunshot of the fort, when we again anchored close under the bank on the opposite side of the river. By the time we were all snug it was near six o'clock in the evening; and the wild cries and uproar on the bank had subsided, no sound marking the vicinity of our dangerous neighbours, excepting a startling shout now and then, that gushed from amongst the mangrove jungle, while a thick column of blue smoke curled up into the calm evening sky from the smoking ruins of the house. Presently, thin grey vapours arose from the surface of the stream on each bank, and rolled sluggishly towards us from the right and left, until the two sheets of mist nearly met. Still a clear canal remained in the middle of the noble stream, its dark flow now circumscribed within a space that a pistol-shot would have flown across point-blank, and apparently banked in with wreaths of wool, or blue smoke. In a few minutes the mist on both beams rose gradually for about ten minutes, until the bushes beyond it, on each side on the river's brink, appeared as if a gauze screen had been interposed between us and them. It continued gradually to roll back, right and left, landward, until it folded over and overlapped the mangroves on the shore, creeping along the tops of them, and leaving the air clear as crystal above its influence, where presently the evening star rose sparkling as brightly as if it had been a frosty sun-set. This had no sooner cleared, than, right ahead of us, a thicker body of mist than what had floated off from the banks,came rolling down the river, in like manner not ri

sing above ten or twelve feet from the surface of the water, where it hung in a solid mass, without in any way melting into the clear atmosphere overhead. When it reached within a cable's length of us, it became stationary, and owned allegiance to the genius of the sea-breeze, becoming thin and smoke-like until it blended into the dissipating vapours from the banks. It was the most noxious I ever breathed-" A palpable, and visible marsh miasmata, the yellow fever in visible perfection," quoth Lieutenant Sprawl.

Through this mist, the glowing sun, now near his setting, suddenly became shorn of his golden hair, and obliged us with a steady view of his red bald globe; while his splendid wake, that half an hour before sparkled on the broad rushing of the mighty stream, converting its whirling eddies into molten gold, was suddenly quenched under the chill pestilential fen-damp, and every thing looked as like the shutting in of a winter's night in Ould Ireland, with a dash of vapour from my own river Lee, which has mud enough to satisfy even a Cork pig, and that is saying a good deal. Had we only had the cold, the similitude would have been perfect.

The sun set; and all hands, men and officers, carried on in getting themselves put to rights as well as they could, after a day of such excitement and such stirring incidents. None of the wounded, I was rejoiced to find, were likely to slip through our fingers; but the fate of the poor fellows who were missing-What was it? Had they been fairly shot down, or sabred on the spot, or immolated afterwards-or, after what we had witnessed, what might it not have been? The surgeon's mate, who constituted part of our appointment, was a skilful fellow in his way, and I had soon the gratification to see all the men who had been hurt, properly cared for. As for my own wound, thanks to the profuse hæmorrhage, the sensation was now more that of a deadening stunning blow than any thing else; and with the exception of the bandage round my head, I was not a great deal the worse, neither to look at, nor indeed in reality. Old Davie Doublepipe and I had dived into the small cabin, and ha

ving taken all the precautions that men could do in our situation, we sat down, along with old Pumpbolt the master, the two reefers, who had come in the frigate's boats, and little Binnacle, to our salt junk and grog.

"A deuced comfortable expedition, Brail, my darling, we have had this same day."

"Very,"responded Benjamin Brail, Esquire. "But here's to you, my man," rapidly followed: "Dum vivimus vivamus,—so spare me that case bottle of rum."

However, we were too awkwardly placed to spend much time over our frugal repast, as the poets say, and presently we were all on deck again. How beautiful, and how different the scene. A small cool breath of air from the land had rolled away the sluggish mists from the broad bosom of the noble river, and every thing overhead was once more clear and transparent. The bright new risen moon was far advanced in the second quarter, and cast a long trembling wake of silver light on the dark rushing of the broad stream, sparkling like diamonds on the tiny ripples, while the darkened half of the chaste planet herself was as perfectly visible, as if her disk had been half silver and half bronze. Her mild light, however, was not strong enough to quench the host of glorious stars that studded the deep, deep firmament, which was without a cloud. On either bank the creeping sickly fog had disappeared, and the dark black banks were clearly defined against the sky, the one shore being lit up by the rising moon, and the other by the golden track of the recently set sun.

The smoke over the site of the conflagration, which had been pale grey during the daylight, became gradually luminous and bright as the night closed in; and every now and then, as if part of the building we had seen on fire had fallen in, a cloud of bright sparks would fly up into the air, spangling the rolling masses of the crimson-tinged wreaths of smoke, that now shone with vivid distinctness. At length the light and flame both slowly decreased until they disappeared altogether, leaving no indication as to their whereabouts.

"Come," said I," we may all turn in quietly for the night. The savages ashore there seem at length to be asleep."

The words were scarcely out of my mouth, when a strong bright glare, as if a flame from a heap of dry wood chips had suddenly blazed up, once more illuminated the whole sky right over above where we had seen the sparks and luminous smoke, while a loud concert of Eboe drums, horns, and wild shouts, arose in the distance.

"Some vile Fetish rite is about being celebrated,” said I.

The noise and glare continued, and with a sickening feeling, I turned away and looked towards the rising moon. Her rays glittered on the gurgling and circling eddies of the river, making every trunk of a tree, or wreath of foam as it floated down with the current, loom clear and distinct, as they swam in black chains and dark masses past the sparkling line her chaste light illuminated. I had leaned for near a quarter of an hour with folded arms, resting my back against the lowered yard, admiring the serenity of the scene, and contrasting it with the thrilling events of the day, and pondering in my own mind what the morrow was to bring forth, when a large branch of a tree, covered with foliage, floated past and attracted my attention, the leaves twinkling darkly in the night breeze between us and the shining river. Immediately a small canoe, with two dark figures in it, launched out from the darkness, and swam down the river into the bright wake of the glorious planet, and floated slowly across it, on the bosom of the mighty stream, that rolled past like a sheet of molten silver. The next moment it vanished in the darkness. I saw it distinctly-there could be no mistake.

"I say, friend Sprawl,"-he was standing beside me enjoying the luxury of a cigar,-" did you see that?" pointing in the direction where the tiny craft had disappeared. He had also seen it.

"We had better keep a bright look-out," continued I; "those savages may prove more venturesome in the darkness than we chose this morning to believe possible."

I kept my eye steadily in the direc

tion where we had seen the canoe vanish; but she was still invisible, and nothing for some time occurred to create any alarm. Every thing continued quiet and still. Even the shouting on shore had entirely ceased. On board of the felucca, the men were clustered round a blazing fire forward, that cast a bright red glare on the dark rushing of the mighty stream as it whizzed past, lap-lapping against our bows, and closing in on the rudder, that cheeped as it was jigged from side to side by the water with a buzzing gurgle; while the small round whirling eddies, visible by the tiny circles of white froth and hissing bells, where the divided waters spun away as if glad of their reunion in our wake, and then rolled down astern of us, blending together in one dark eddy, wherein the boats under the tafferel sheered about, with the water flashing at their bows, like so many captured hippopotami, until I expected every moment to see the taught painters torn

away.

The wounded by this time were all stowed snugly below, but the figures on the crowded deck of the little vessel glanced wildly round the crackling fire. Many of the men, who had floundered in the slime of the creek, appeared like absolute statues of plaster of Paris, when the mud had dried on them, as they busily employed themselves in picking off great patches of the hardened filth that adhered to their clothes like greaves and cuisses. Some were engaged cooking their food; others were cleaning their arms; while the grog went round cheerily, and the loud laugh and coarse jest evinced the buoyancy of young hearts, even while they sat within ear-shot of the groans of their wounded comrades, and while the bodies of those who had fallen were scarce cold, and the most appalling dangers to themselves had just been surmounted.

I was now called below by the surgeon's mate to inspect the condition of the wounded. Old Bloody Politeful accompanied me. None of the sound part of the crew had yet turned in, but, in the hurry of going ashore, all their hammocks had been left slung; and, as the between-decks was barely five feet high, it was rather a bothersome matter to navigate