Not deeming it safe to linger on the coast, Macrae and his crew hastened inland, reaching the town of the local chief, twenty-five miles off, the following morning.  Exhausted with fatigue and wounds, almost naked, they were in a pitiable condition.  The natives received them hospitably, supplied their wants to the best of their ability, and refused to surrender them to the pirates, who offered a reward for them.

After the first rage of the pirates, at the heavy losses they had sustained, had abated, and soothed, no doubt, by the capture of a fine new ship with L75,000 on board in hard cash, Macrae ventured to open communications with them.  Several among them had sailed with him, and his reputation for considerate treatment of his men was well known.  With all their faults, they were not all of them men to resent greatly, after their first fury had cooled, the loss that had been suffered in fair fight; so England gave him a promise of safety, and he ventured himself among them.  The Cassandra and the Fancy had been floated, and Macrae was entertained on board his own ship with his own liquors and provisions.  His position was not without danger, as there were many brutal fellows among the pirates.  England, who had a reputation for good treatment of prisoners, befriended him; but Taylor, whose influence was greatest among the most brutal of the rovers, insisted he should be made an end of.  In the midst of the quarrel, a fierce-looking fellow with a wooden leg and his belt full of pistols, intervened, asking with many oaths for Macrae, who thought his last moment had come.[3] He was pleasantly surprised when the ruffian took him by the hand, and swore with many oaths that he would make mince-meat of the first man that hurt him; and protested, with more oaths, that Macrae was an honest fellow, and he had formerly sailed with him.  So the dispute ended.  Taylor was plied with punch till he was prevailed on to consent that the Fancy, together with some of the Cassandra’s cargo, should be given to Macrae, and before he could recover from his carouse, Macrae had got safe to shore again.

As soon as the pirates had left the coast, in the Victory and the Cassandra, Macrae set to work to patch up the much-battered Fancy, and in a few days sailed for Bombay, with forty-one of his ship’s company, among whom were two passengers and twelve soldiers.  After forty-eight days of terrible sufferings almost naked, half starved, and reduced to a daily pint of water each, they reached Bombay on the 26th October.  It would have been well for the Company if they had had more captains like Macrae.  His arrival brought much obloquy on Kirby, whose shameful desertion was now made known.