We were not long kept in suspense, for, to do the pirates justice, they came on to the attack with every symptom of perfect fearlessness, and we had only just sufficient time wherein to make our preparations when, taking a broad sheer, the brig rounded-to and shot alongside us.  At the moment when she was within about a fathom of us, her bulwarks lined with swarthy, unkempt-looking desperadoes, holding themselves in readiness to fling themselves in upon our decks, I gave the word to fire, and the whole double-shotted broadside--with a charge of canister on top of it, which Simpson had quietly ordered to be rammed home on top of the round shot--went crashing into her, making a very pretty "general average" among her crew, and among her spars and rigging.  The crew of boarders seemed to have been swept out of existence, and so severely wounded were her masts that the shock of her collision with the schooner, a moment later, sent both of them over the side, fortunately into the sea instead of across our decks; and there she lay, a sheer hulk, secured to us by the grappling irons which our people had promptly hove, and quite unable to escape.