at sometimes in the enthusiasm of the moment. `We
haven't got the slaver yet, and it will be time to cheer when we've
captured him! Mr Shrapnel,' he added then, as soon as all was quiet,
the men being as mum as a mouse fore and aft--`you must send another
messenger after, my joker; try if you can't do him a little more damage
this time!'

"`Aye, aye, sir,' sang out the gunner; and he set to work again with a
will, for the brief time during which the dhow's big main lug had been
down had enabled us to get within half a mile of her, and Mr Shrapnel
was better able to see what he was shooting at. He was a knowing hand,
was the gunner! Watching his opportunity when the _Dolphin_ rose on the
top of the heavy rolling swell that set in towards the land, and when
the dhow was right down in the hollow of the combers, he pulled the
lanyard of the trigger, and with a bang and a belch of flame and smoke a
heavy conical shot went rotating through the air, making as much noise
as a railroad train as it hurtled forwards at the chase, whose hull was
hidden from view, but whose masts seemed quite close to us.

"He didn't require to fire a second shot this time.

"No sooner had the report sounded and the roaring rumbling thunder of
the discharge died away in the distance, rolling in towards the coast--
the smoke being blown away, too, as quickly by the wind--than we could
see the dhow dismasted before us, swaying about in the trough of the
sea.

"She was a hopeless wreck, for both her masts had been snapped off short
by the shot, and the yards to which the sails had been attached were
lying athwart the deck. The _Dolphin_ now ranged up alongside her on
the leeward bow, and the captain hailed her to know if she surrendered,
when one of the Arabs on board, who must have been the skipper, waved a
red handkerchief or cloth of some kind in token of truce. He was a
tall, swarthy chap, with a turban instead of a fez, which the others
wore, on his head; and the belt round his body, as we could see from
looking down on to the deck of the dhow, which was much below the level
of our vessel, was filled choke-full with long-barrelled pistols and
dirks, and a round-shaped scimitar-like sword without a sheath that
seemed as if it could give a fellow a very tidy cut.

"The sea was rough and both the dhow and the _Dolphin_ were rolling
about terribly, we dipping our foreyard-arms as we lay-to; but Captain
Wilson at once ordered the first cutte