Then ensued a breathless, hair-raising fifteen seconds, during which it seemed impossible for the schooner and the brigantine to avoid a collision--in which case they must have sunk each other out of hand. Then, when the two craft were not more than fifteen feet apart, the schooner's head fell off, she turned broadside-on to the sea, and, our people smartly hauling down our fore-staysail, the brigantine drew slowly ahead and clear of us, our bowsprit-end missing her mainboom by the merest hairbreadth, and the danger was over.  But during that minute or so of frightful suspense, which the stranger's crew had spent in rushing madly and aimlessly about the decks, execrating us in voluble Spanish, an opportunity had been afforded us to ascertain that the brigantine was named the _San Antonio_, and that she was beyond all question a slaver, with a cargo on board.