hile he was jammed up in the wind, and with his five
eighteen-pounders raked him fore and aft, then paying off, gave him three
carronades crammed with grape and canister; the almost simultaneous
discharge of eight guns made the ship tremble, and enveloped her in thick
smoke; loud shrieks and groans were heard from the schooner; the smoke
cleared; the pirate's mainsail hung on deck, his jib-boom was cut off
like a carrot and the sail struggling; his foresail looked lace, lanes of
dead and wounded lay still or writhing on his deck and his lee scuppers
ran blood into the sea. Dodd squared his yards and bore away.

The ship rushed down the wind, leaving the schooner staggered and all
abroad. But not for long; the pirate wore and fired his bow chasers at
the now flying _Agra_, split one of the carronades in two, and killed a
Lascar, and made a hole in the foresail; this done, he hoisted his
mainsail again in a trice, sent his wounded below, flung his dead
overboard, to the horror of their foes, and came after the flying ship,
yawning and firing his bow chasers. The ship was silent. She had no
shot to throw away. Not only did she take these blows like a coward, but
all signs of life disappeared on her, except two men at the wheel, and
the captain on the main gangway.

Dodd had ordered the crew out of the rigging, armed them with cutlasses,
and laid them flat on the forecastle. He also compelled Kenealy and
Fullalove to come down out of harm's way, no wiser on the smooth-bore
question than they went up.

The great patient ship ran environed by her foes; one destroyer right in
her course, another in her wake, following her with yells of vengeance,
and pounding away at her--but no reply.

Suddenly the yells of the pirates on both sides ceased, and there was a
moment of dead silence on the sea.

Yet nothing fresh had happened.

Yes, this had happened: the pirates to windward, and the pirates to
leeward, of the _Agra_, had found out, at one and the same moment, that
the merchant captain they had lashed, and bullied, and tortured, was a
patient but tremendous man. It was not only to rake the fresh schooner
he had put his ship before the wind, but also by a double, daring,
master-stroke to hurl his monster ship bodily on the other. Without a
foresail she could never get out of his way. Her crew had stopped the
leak, and cut away and unshipped the broken foremast, and were stepping a
new one, when they saw the huge shi