the morning.  It was a night, however, of pain and terror, as well as of the most anxious suspense; and when the morning dawn broke upon my vision, I felt an indescribable emotion of gratitude, as I had fully made up my mind, the night previous, that long before this time I should have been sleeping the sleep of death.  It was a pitiable sight, when the morning light appeared, to see twenty human beings stripped naked, with their bodies cut and lacerated, and the blood issuing from their wounds; with their hands and feet tied, and their bodies fastened to stakes, with brushwood piled around them, expecting every moment to be their last.  My feelings, on this occasion, can be better imagined than described; suffice it to say, that I had given up all hopes of escape, and gloomily resigned myself to death.  When the fumes of the liquor had in some degree worn off from the benumbed senses of the savages, they arose and approached us, and, for the first time, the wily Indian informed me that the tribe had agreed to ransom us.  They then cast off the lashings from our bodies and feet, and, with our hands still secure, drove us before them to the beach.  Then another difficulty arose; the privateer was out of sight, and the Indians became furious.  To satiate their hellish malice, they obliged us to run on the beach, while they let fly their poisoned arrows after us.  For my own part, my limbs were so benumbed that I could scarcely walk, and I firmly resolved to stand still and take the worst of it—­which was the best plan I could have adopted; for, when they perceived that I exhibited no signs of fear, not a single arrow was discharged at me.  Fortunately, before they grew weary of this sport, to my great joy, the privateer hove in sight.  She stood boldly in, with the flag of truce flying, and the savages consented to let one man of their own choosing go off in the boat to procure the stipulated ransom.  The boat returned loaded with articles of various descriptions, and two of our men were released.  The boat kept plying to and from the privateer, bringing such articles as they demanded, until all were released except myself.  Here it may be proper to observe, that the mulatto man, who had been selected by the Indians, performed all this duty himself, not one of the privateer’s crew daring to hazard their lives with him in the boat.  I then was left alone, and for my release they required a double ransom.  I began now seriously to think that they intended to detain me altogether.  My mulatto friend, however, pledged himself that he would never leave me.

Again, for the last time, he sculled the boat off.  She quickly returned, with a larger amount of articles than previously.  It was a moment of the deepest anxiety, for there had now arrived from the interior another tribe, apparently superior in point of numbers, and elated with the booty which had been obtained.  They demanded a share, and expressed a determination to detain me for a larger ransom.  These demands