And as I spoke I made a dash at the trysail brails, cast them off, and proceeded to drag upon the fall of the outhaul tackle.  Presently Fonseca returned with Jose, and both lent a hand with a will, the latter seeming to be quite as anxious as any of us to avoid being taken by his former companions.  Then, rushing forward, I laid out on the jib-boom and cast loose the inner jib, which Fonseca and Jose at once proceeded to hoist.  Then, hauling the jib-sheet over to windward, we cast off the slip by which the brig was, as usual, secured to her buoy, and I then ran aft and put the helm hard down.  The brig was now adrift, and with stern way on her; but with the helm hard down she soon paid off, when we hauled aft the lee jib-sheet, and she at once began to forge ahead. But, unfortunately for us, it was almost a dead beat of nearly two miles out to sea, with not very much room to manoeuvre in.  If, therefore, the people ashore happened to be specially handy with their tools they might yet get their boat repaired in time to give us trouble; for, smart ship as the _Barracouta_ undoubtedly was, the small amount of sail which we now had set was only sufficient to put her along at about two knots in the hour, or barely to give her steerage way.  But she carried a main- topmast staysail which was a fine big sail, the stay reaching from the main-topmast cross-trees down to the foremast within about ten feet of the deck, and this sail we now got on her, with great advantage, her speed at once increasing to nearly four knots.  But under this canvas I soon found that she griped rather badly; that is to say, she required an undue amount of weather helm to hold her straight to her course.  We therefore loosed and set the fore-topmast staysail, after which she not only practically steered herself, but further increased her speed to not far short of five knots.  We had now as much canvas set as we three men could very well manage, and quite enough to keep us going so soon as we should get outside.  My only anxiety was lest we should have trouble with the people before we could pass out clear of the heads into the open ocean.  Once there I knew that we could easily run away from any rowboat that they could launch.  And that reminded me that we had no less than four boats towing behind us, and that they retarded our speed to a quite perceptible extent.  Summoning Fonseca and Jose to my assistance, therefore, and showing Lotta how to manipulate the helm in such a manner as to keep the brig going through the water, we hauled-up first one gig and then the other, and succeeded in hoisting them to the davits.  The other two we also hauled alongside, and, dropping a couple of cold shot through their bottoms cast them adrift.