fight, or get whipped. Keep your wits about you, and listen for
orders. Cover your gun pans to keep your priming dry. Here, Tom, take
the tiller. I must go to the bow."

Tom took the helm, and as he did so Sam said to him:--

"Keep straight ahead till I give you orders to change your course, and
then do it instantly, no matter what happens. I've an idea that I know
how to manage this affair now. You have only to listen for orders, and
obey them promptly."

"I'll do what you order, no matter what it is," said Tom, and Sam went
at once to the bow of his boat.

His boys were crouching down on their knees to keep themselves as
steady as they could, and their guns, which they were protecting from
the rain, were not visible to the men in the other boat, who were
astonished to find that they had, as they supposed, only to arrest a
boat's crew of unarmed boys.

The boats were now within a stone's throw of each other, the English
boat lying a little to the left of Sam's track, but the officer in
command of it, supposing that the party would surrender at the word of
command, ordered his men not to open fire.

"They's a mighty heap on 'em for sich a little boat," whispered Sid
Russell.

"So much the better," said Sam. "They're badly crowded."

Then, turning to his companions, he said:--

"Lie down, quick, they'll fire in a moment."

The boys could see no indication of any such purpose on the part of
the British marines, but Sam knew what he was about and he knew that
his next order to his boys would draw a volley upon them.

Turning to Tom, and straightening himself up to his full height, while
the British officer was loudly calling to him to lie to and surrender,
Sam cried out:

"Jam your helm down to larboard, Tom, quick and hard, and ram her into
'em!"

Tom was on the point of hesitating, but remembering Sam's previous
injunction and his own promise, he did as he was ordered, suddenly
changing the boat's course and running her directly toward the British
row boat, which was now not a dozen yards away. The speed at which she
was going was fearful. The British, seeing the manoeuvre, fired, but
wildly, and the next moment Sam's great solid hulk of a boat struck
the British craft amidships, crushed in her sides, cut her in two, and
literally ran over her.

"Now, bring her back to the wind," cried Sam, "and hold your course."

The boat swung around and was flying before the wind again in a
second. Boats were ra