the bulwark. The captain had lit a pipe of tobacco, and he stood now
in the bright moonlight close to the rail, with his hands behind him,
looking out ahead with the utmost coolness imaginable, and paying no
more attention to the din of battle than though it were twenty leagues
away. Now and then he would take his pipe from his lips to utter an
order to the man at the wheel. Excepting this he stood there hardly
moving at all, the wind blowing his long red hair over his shoulders.

[Illustration: BURNING THE SHIP]

Had it not been for the armed galley the pirates might have got the
galleon away with no great harm done in spite of all this
cannonading, for the man-of-war which rode at anchor nighest to them
at the mouth of the harbor was still so far away that they might have
passed it by hugging pretty close to the shore, and that without any
great harm being done to them in the darkness. But just at this
moment, when the open water lay in sight, came this galley pulling out
from behind the point of the shore in such a manner as either to head
our pirates off entirely or else to compel them to approach so near to
the man-of-war that that latter vessel could bring its guns to bear
with more effect.

This galley, I must tell you, was like others of its kind such as you
may find in these waters, the hull being long and cut low to the water
so as to allow the oars to dip freely. The bow was sharp and projected
far out ahead, mounting a swivel upon it, while at the stern a number
of galleries built one above another into a castle gave shelter to
several companies of musketeers as well as the officers commanding
them.

Our hero could behold the approach of this galley from above the
starboard bulwarks, and it appeared to him impossible for them to hope
to escape either it or the man-of-war. But still Captain Morgan
maintained the same composure that he had exhibited all the while,
only now and then delivering an order to the man at the wheel, who,
putting the helm over, threw the bows of the galleon around more to
the larboard, as though to escape the bow of the galley and get into
the open water beyond. This course brought the pirates ever closer and
closer to the man-of-war, which now began to add its thunder to the
din of the battle, and with so much more effect that at every
discharge you might hear the crashing and crackling of splintered
wood, and now and then the outcry or groaning of some man who was
hurt. Indeed