The next instant we were all leaping and scrambling, pell-mell, in over the bulwarks of the brigantine and leaping down on her decks, which were already slippery with blood and cumbered with killed and wounded. Fortunately, by boarding on the brigantine's port side, as we did, we took her crew in their rear, which so greatly disconcerted them--while our appearance imparted fresh courage to the commodore's party--that after vainly striving to stand against us for nearly a minute, some flung down their weapons and cried for quarter, while the remainder made a clean bolt of it forward and darted down the fore scuttle, which we promptly closed upon them.