ion and the hurry, they
escaped entire destruction, though more by a miracle than through any
policy upon their own part.

Meantime the galley, steering as though to come aboard of them, had now
come so near that it, too, presently began to open its musketry fire
upon them, so that the humming and rattling of bullets were presently
added to the din of cannonading.

In two minutes more it would have been aboard of them, when in a moment
Captain Morgan roared out of a sudden to the man at the helm to put it
hard a starboard. In response the man ran the wheel over with the
utmost quickness, and the galleon, obeying her helm very readily, came
around upon a course which, if continued, would certainly bring them
into collision with their enemy.

It is possible at first the Spaniards imagined the pirates intended to
escape past their stern, for they instantly began backing oars to keep
them from getting past, so that the water was all of a foam about them;
at the same time they did this they poured in such a fire of musketry
that it was a miracle that no more execution was accomplished than
happened.

As for our hero, methinks for the moment he forgot all about everything
else than as to whether or no his captain's manoeuvre would succeed,
for in the very first moment he divined, as by some instinct, what
Captain Morgan purposed doing.

At this moment, so particular in the execution of this nice design, a
bullet suddenly struck down the man at the wheel. Hearing the sharp
outcry, our Harry turned to see him fall forward, and then to his hands
and knees upon the deck, the blood running in a black pool beneath him,
while the wheel, escaping from his hands, spun over until the spokes
were all of a mist.

In a moment the ship would have fallen off before the wind had not our
hero, leaping to the wheel (even as Captain Morgan shouted an order for
some one to do so), seized the flying spokes, whirling them back again,
and so bringing the bow of the galleon up to its former course.

[Illustration: "OUR HERO, LEAPING TO THE WHEEL, SEIZED THE FLYING
SPOKES"]

In the first moment of this effort he had reckoned of nothing but of
carrying out his captain's designs. He neither thought of cannon-balls
nor of bullets. But now that his task was accomplished, he came
suddenly back to himself to find the galleries of the galleon aflame
with musket-shots, and to become aware with a most horrible sinking of
the spirits that all the sh