else, eager to shake dice with destiny and with courage unbroken.
It was so with Amasa Delano, who promptly went to work "with what
spirits I could revive within me. After a time they returned to
their former elasticity."

He obtained a position as master builder in a shipyard, saved
some money, borrowed more, and with one of his brothers was soon
blithely building a vessel of two hundred tons for a voyage into
the Pacific and to the northwest coast after seals. They sailed
along Patagonia and found much to interest them, dodged in and
out of the ports of Chili and Peru, and incidentally recaptured a
Spanish ship which was in the hands of the slaves who formed her
cargo.

This was all in the day's work and happened at the island of
Santa Maria, not far from Juan Fernandez, where Captain Delano's
Perseverance found the high-pooped Tryal in a desperate state.
Spanish sailors who had survived the massacre were leaping
overboard or scrambling up to the mastheads while the African
savages capered on deck and flourished their weapons. Captain
Delano liked neither the Spaniard nor the slavetrade, but it was
his duty to help fellow seamen in distress; so he cleared for
action and ordered two boats away to attend to the matter. The
chief mate, Rufus Low, was in charge, and a gallant sailor he
showed himself. They had to climb the high sides of the Tryal and
carry, in hand-to-hand conflict, the barricades of water-casks
and bales of matting which the slaves had built across the deck.
There was no hanging back, and even a mite of a midshipman from
Boston pranced into it with his dirk. The negroes were well armed
and fought ferociously. The mate was seriously wounded, four