d fire upon us whenever any of her guns could
be brought to bear, the result of which was that one of our men had
already been hurt by a splinter, while the schooner's rigging was
beginning to be a good deal cut up. Meanwhile we were precluded from
returning the barque's fire lest we should injure or kill any of the
unhappy wretches pent up in her hold. At length a round-shot entered
the schooner's bows, traversed the decks, and passed out over the
taffrail, glancing hither and thither as it went, and, although it did
no material damage, affording several of the men a very narrow escape.

"Why, this will never do!" exclaimed Ryan, as the shot made its exit
after passing between the legs of the man who was standing at the now
idle tiller. "A few of those fellows, as well aimed as that one was,
would make a very pretty general average among us. We shall have to get
out the boats--or, stop!--yes, I think that will be better; we will arm
the men and make all ready for boarding; load the guns with a double
charge of grape; and then man the sweeps, and sweep the schooner
alongside, firing our guns as we heave the grappling-irons, and boarding
in the smoke. We shall thus have all hands available when we get
alongside, and our bulwarks will meanwhile afford the men a certain
amount of protection."

The necessary orders were accordingly given, and a few minutes later the
men, stripped to the waist, had rigged out the heavy sweeps and were
toiling away at them. And now the advantages of the schooner's light
scantling, light draught, and fine lines made themselves fully apparent,
for, having once overcome the inertia of the hull and put it in motion,
the men found the little craft very easy on her sweeps, and capable of
being moved at quite a respectable pace through the water.

The barque was of course much too large and unwieldy a craft to be moved
by the same means, and nothing of the kind was even attempted; her crew,
however, maintained a smart fire upon us as we approached; but as we
were careful to keep her end-on so that only her two stern-chasers could
be brought to bear upon us, and as we kept up a hot musketry fire upon
that particular part of her, we did not suffer very severely; and
without any further casualties we at length arrived near enough, with
good way on, to permit of the sweeps being laid in, preparatory to our
ranging up alongside. Ryan now divided the boarders into two parties,
one to be led by hi