ee us
within reach of his guns.

Mason, however--the man who had formerly proved himself to be so
excellent a shot with the eighteen-pounder,--was still aboard the
schooner, and I had great hopes of him, especially as I knew that he
would be by this time upon his mettle and animated by a feeling that it
behoved him to speedily do something remarkable if he would save his
reputation. Nor was I deceived in my expectations of him; for, very
shortly afterwards, a shot from the schooner cut the halliard of the
frigate's larboard lower studding-sail, and the sail dropped into the
water, retarding the vessel's progress perceptibly until it was got in.
It occupied the Frenchmen nearly a quarter of an hour to accomplish
this, to splice the halliard, and to reset the sail. Meanwhile the
brigantine had not been idle; and even while the Frenchmen were busy
about their studding-sail, she recrossed the frigate's stern, firing
another broadside at that vessel's spars, with considerable success, it
appeared; for although we could not make out exactly what had happened
it was evident that something had gone seriously wrong, Captain
Chesney--who stood beside me, watching the fight--declaring that he had
noticed an appearance strongly suggestive of the fall of the frigate's
mizzen-mast. I hardly believed that such could be the case, for,
steering as the frigate then was, dead before the wind, had her mizzen-
mast fallen, it would have fallen forward, doing so much damage to the
spars and sails on the mainmast that I think the effect would have been
recognisable even where we were. I considered it far more probable that
the mizzen-topmast or topgallant-mast had been shot away. The next shot
from the schooner, however, was an exceedingly lucky one; it appeared to
strike the frigate's fore-topmast about six feet below the cross-trees,
and the next moment the whole of the wreck was hanging by the topsail-
sheets from the fore-yard down on to the ship's forecastle, with her
jibs and fore-topmast-staysail towing under her bows. This at once
caused her to broach-to, and settled her business, so far as any hope of
capturing us was concerned; but she had her revenge by pouring the whole
of her starboard broadside into the brigantine, the sails and rigging of
which were tremendously cut up by the unexpected salute. And as the
frigate broached-to we saw that my surmise was not very far wide of the
mark, her mizzen-topgallant-mast and mizzen-t