pounds prize money to every man before the mast
if we beat him off or outmanœuvre him; thirty if
we sink him; and forty if we tow him astern into a
friendly port. Eight guns are clear below, three
on the weather side, five on the lee; for, if he
knows his business, he will come up on the lee
quarter; if he doesn't, that is no fault of yours
or mine. The muskets are all loaded, the
cutlasses ground like razors——"

"Hurrah!"

"We have got women to defend——"

"Hurrah!"

"A good ship under our feet, the God of
justice over head, British hearts in our bosoms,
and British colours flying—run 'em up!—over
our heads." (The ship's colours flew up to the fore,
and the Union Jack to the mizen peak.) "Now
lads, I mean to fight this ship while a plank of
her (stamping on the deck) swims beneath my
foot, and—WHAT DO YOU SAY?"

The reply was a fierce "hurrah!" from a
hundred throats, so loud, so deep, so full of
volume, it made the ship vibrate, and rang in the
creeping on pirate's ears. Fierce, but cunning,
he saw mischief in those shortened sails, and that
Union Jack, the terror of his tribe, rising to a
British cheer; he lowered his mainsail, and
crawled up on the weather quarter. Arrived
within a cable's length, he double reefed his foresail
to reduce his rate of sailing nearly to that of
the ship; and the next moment a tongue of flame,
and then a gush of smoke, issued from his lee
bow, and the ball flew screaming like a seagull
over the Agra's mizen top. He then put his
helm up, and fired his other bow-chaser, and
sent the shot hissing and skipping on the water
past the ship. This prologue made the novices
wince. Bayliss wanted to reply with a carronade;
but Dodd forbade him sternly, saying, "If we
keep him aloof we are done for."

The pirate drew nearer, and fired both guns in
succession, hulled the Agra amidships, and sent
an eighteen pound ball through her foresail.
Most of the faces were pale on the quarter deck;
it was very trying to be shot at, and hit, and
make no return. The next double discharge sent
one shot smash through the stern cabin window,
and splintered the bulwark with another, wounding
a seaman slightly.

"LIE DOWN FORWARD!" shouted Dodd, through
his trumpet.  "Bayliss, give him a shot."

The carronade was fired with a tremendous
report, but no visible effect. The pirate crept
nearer, steering in and out like a snake to avoid
the carronades, and firing those two heavy guns
alternately into the devoted ship. He hulled the
Agra now nearly every shot.

The two available carronades replied noisily,
and jumped, as usual; they sent one thirty-two
pound shot clean through the schooner's deck
and side; but that was literally all they did
worth speaking of.

"Curse them!" cried Dodd; "load them with
grape! they are not to be trusted with ball.
And all my eighteen-pounders dumb! The
coward won't come alongside and give them a
chance."

At the next discharge the pirate chipped the
mizen mast, and knocked a sailor into dead pieces
on the forecastle. Dodd put his helm down ere
the smoke cleared, and got three carronades to
bear, heavily laden with grape. Several pirates fell,
dead or wounded, on the crowded deck, and some
holes appeared in the foresail; this one
interchange was quite in favour of the ship.

But the lesson made the enemy more cautious;
he crept nearer, but steered so adroitly, now right
astern, now on the quarter, that the ship could
seldom bring more than one carronade to bear,
while he raked her fore and aft with grape and ball.

In this alarming situation, Dodd kept as many
of the men below as possible; but, for all he
could do, four were killed and seven wounded.

Fullalove's word came too true: it was the
swordfish and the whale: it was a fight of
hammer and anvil; one hit, the other made a
noise. Cautious and cruel, the pirate hung on
the poor hulking creature's quarters and raked
her at point blank distance. He made her pass
a bitter time. And her captain! To see the
splintering hull, the parting shrouds, the shivered
gear, and hear the shrieks and groans of his
wounded; and he unable to reply in kind?
The sweat of agony poured down his face. Oh,
if he could but reach the open sea, and square
his yards, and make a long chase of it; perhaps
fall in with aid. Wincing under each heavy
blow, he crept doggedly, patiently, on, towards
that one visible hope.

At last, when the ship was cloved with shot,
and peppered with grape, the channel opened: in
five minutes more he could put her dead before
the wind.

No. The pirate, on whose side luck had
been from the first, got half a broadside to bear
at long musket shot, killed a midshipman by
Dodd's side, cut away two of the Agra's mizen
shrouds, wounded the gaff: and cut the jib stay;
down fell that powerful sail into the water, and
dragged across the ship's forefoot, stopping her
way to the open sea she panted for; the mates
groaned; the crew cheered stoutly, as British tars
do in any great disaster; the pirates yelled with
ferocious triumph, like the devils they looked.

But most human events, even calamities, have
two sides. The Agra being brought almost to a
standstill, the pirate forged ahead against his
will, and the combat took a new and terrible
form. The elephant gun popped, and the
rifle cracked, in the Agra's mizen top, and
the man at the pirate's helm jumped into the air
and fell dead: both Theorists claimed him. Then
the three carronades peppered him hotly; and
he hurled an iron shower back with fatal effect.
Then at last the long 18-pounders on the
gun-deck got a word in. The old Niler was not the
man to miss a vessel alongside in a quiet sea;
he sent two round shot clean through him; the
third splintered his bulwark, and swept across
his deck.