ntly close to my head. Nobody was hurt, however, and our men
returned the fire with commendable steadiness, scoring a few hits, if
one might judge by the cries that arose on board the junk, and the
suddenness with which some five or six of her people sank out of sight
behind her bulwarks. Then fresh hands appeared, showing suddenly above
the rail, taking rapid aim, pulling trigger, and vanishing out of sight,
not always quickly enough, however, to dodge the bullets that our people
sent whizzing about their ears.

Thus far not one of the _Mercury's_ people had been touched; but the
critical moment was yet to come. It was now close at hand, however, for
our figurehead had drawn up level with the stern of the junk, and there
was not more than fifty fathoms of water between the two craft. We
might expect their broadside at any moment, and I felt that it was
scarcely possible for us to receive it at such very short range without
receiving very severe punishment. I therefore exhorted our people to
maintain a hot fire upon the ports of the junk, feeling-convinced that
every bullet which passed through would be almost certain to find its
billet in the body of a Chinaman, thus tending to flurry their gunners
and possibly cause them to shoot wide.

We were now so close that I was able to see that the junk needed a
trifle of lee helm to keep her close to the wind; and I had no sooner
noted this fact than I saw a man show his head for an instant above the
break of the junk's poop and sign to the helmsman to put his helm hard
down. I guessed in an instant what this meant. They were about to
throw the junk into the wind, in the hope that she would fall aboard of
us, when they would pour their starboard broadside into us and board
amidst the smoke. They could not possibly have hit upon a plan more
likely to succeed, or to be fatal to us; and, recognising the deadly
nature of our peril, I yelled to our people at once to fling themselves
flat on the deck, which they did with almost laughable promptitude. At
the same time I seized my musket, which thus far I had not fired, and,
kneeling down, with one of the poop hencoops as a rest, aimed straight
at the body of the junk's helmsman, just as he was thrusting the tiller
hard down. I pulled the trigger the instant that I had the man covered,
and down he dropped, motionless, the ponderous tiller escaping from his
grasp and swinging heavily back amidships, with the result that the