was by no means
sorry; for I rather fancied myself as a shot, and was glad of a good
excuse to appropriate one of the weapons.

Our arrangements being now complete, I had leisure to consider the
relative positions of the two junks as regarded ourselves, and it needed
but a single glance to assure me that the enemy's vessels, unwieldy and
awkward as their model seemed to be, had the advantage of us in the
matter of weatherliness; for they looked up a good point and a half
higher than the _Mercury_, and although they made more leeway than
ourselves, that point and a half fully compensated for it, the
consequence being that the junk astern was gradually working out upon
our weather quarter, while the junk on our lee bow was also hawsing up
to windward. We were slightly faster than they, however, and were
consequently drawing away from the junk astern, from which I hoped we
had not much more to fear. But the junk on our lee bow was certain to
give us trouble, for we were gaining upon her while she was edging up
nearer to our track every minute, with the result that, by the time that
we overhauled her, we should be within biscuit-toss of each other. And
I could not hope to escape her by tacking ship, for she would probably
be quite as quick in stays as ourselves, possibly a trifle quicker.
Such an evolution would place her broad on our weather quarter, and far
enough to windward to permit of her edging down on us with slack
bowlines, while we should be jammed close on a wind, an advantage which,
I believed, would give her the heels of us and enable her to lay us
aboard. This, I felt, must be avoided at all costs; for if once her
crew should gain a footing upon our decks their numbers were sufficient
to overpower us instantly. I therefore determined to slip past her to
windward and run the gauntlet of her fire; that risk, terrible as it
was, being, to my mind, less than the other.

Having thus decided, I called to Polson to ask him how we were off in
the matter of bullets, to which he replied that there were half a dozen
kegs altogether. This being the case, I thought we might venture to be
a trifle extravagant, so I gave orders for a keg to be brought on deck,
and for the two six-pounders to be loaded with bullets practically to
the muzzle, on top of a round shot. This was done, four double--
handfuls--amounting to about one hundred bullets--being dropped into the
gun on top of the round shot, and a wad rammed home o