son 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 cloven 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_ mizzen shrouds, wounded the gaff: and
cut the jib stay; down fell the 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_ mizzen 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 h