Without waiting an instant to see what had become of the man who had played me this murderous trick, I called my men together, launched the boats, and put out to sea.
By this time the sea-breeze had set in, and I could see the vessel I had been watching, though still a considerable distance from the shore, was trimming her sails to the sea-breeze, and steering straight in for the very spot where I had been concealed.

Signal after signal was made to her by her friends on the shore, in the shape of lighted fires (not much avail in the daytime) and the hoisting of flags, &c., but she seemed utterly to disregard the action of her friends.

Satisfied, I imagine, that she had all but finished her voyage, seeing no cruiser and unsuspicious of boats, on she came.[1] We got almost alongside of her before the people on board seemed to see us.

When she did, evidently taken by surprise, she put her helm down, and throwing all her sails aback, snapped some of her lighter spars, thus throwing everything into confusion--confusion made worse by the fact that, with the view of immediate landing, two hundred or three hundred of the niggers had been freed from their confinement and were crowded on the deck.

Taking advantage of this state of things we made our capture without a shot being fired.
In fact everything was done, as sailors say, 'before you could look round you,' the man at the helm replaced by one of my men, the crew bundled down into the slave-hold to give them a taste of its horrors, and the sails trimmed for seaward instead of towards the land.