uple of
hands and have Mr O'Flaherty taken below. I must remain here and look
after the ship."

"Is O'Flaherty wounded?" gasped Courtenay. I pointed to the prostrate
body of the lieutenant, upon which my chum at once hurried away, and,
raising the wounded man in his arms, called one of the men to help in
conveying him below.

We were lucky enough to trip and recover our anchor without accident;
the quarter-boat was hoisted up, and we then wore round after the
felucca, which was hovering irresolutely about a mile away, apparently
undecided whether to renew the attack or not. On seeing, however, that
we were afloat again and after her, she bore up and stood to the
eastward, close hauled on the larboard tack.

We cracked on after her under every stitch of canvas we could spread,
but she walked away from us hand over hand, at the same time looking up
a couple of points nearer the wind than we did, so that it soon became
evident we might as well hope to catch the Flying Dutchman as to get
alongside the chase. And in the midst of it all we plumped ashore
again, this time with such violence that our fore and main-topmasts both
snapped short off at the caps, like carrots, and hung dangling by their
gear to leeward.

We were now in a very tidy mess, and had our late antagonist chosen to
retrace her steps and renew her attack upon us we should, in our
disabled condition, have found her an exceedingly awkward customer to
tackle. Fortunately for us she seemed to have had as much as she
wanted; and a quarter of an hour later she slid out through one of the
numerous channels between the islands and disappeared.

Setting one watch to clear away the wreck and the other to furl all
canvas, I requested Courtenay, who was now again on deck, to take the
quarter-boat and a sounding-line and to go away in search of the deepest
water. This was found at about fifty fathoms distant from and directly
to windward of the ship; and in this direction we accordingly ran away
our stream-anchor and cable as before, the cable this time, however,
being led in through one of the chocks on the larboard bow, from whence
it was taken to the capstan. The men hove and hove until everything
creaked again, whilst the schooner careened fully a couple of streaks to
port; but it was all to no purpose, not an inch would she budge; and
finally the anchor began to come home pretty rapidly. The stream was
evidently of no use, so I sent away the boat to we