fool's tricks as that, and
we'll say good-bye t'ye without ever having been within range. See how
long it takes him to pay off ag'in, Harry; very near lost his way
altogether, when he'd 'a had to box her off with his headyards; and by
the time he'd done that we should be well clear of him. Well, I _did_
think the man had more sense than to do the like of that."

Friend Johnson evidently saw his mistake as clearly as we did, for he
fired no more until we had crept up fairly ahead of him. Just as we
were crossing his bows, however, and had got his masts in tone--by which
time he had drawn considerably nearer us--the brig _fell off_ a little,
not to repeat her former error, and again came the flash, the smoke, and
the ringing report.

"Here it comes straight for us this time, and no mistake," exclaimed
Bob, as the water-jets again marked the course of the shot. "Scaldings!
out of the road all of us that's got thin skulls," continued he, as the
shot came skipping across the water in such long bounds as showed we
were within range. "Well missed!" added he, as the shot struck the
water close to us, and bounded fairly over the boat, passing close
beneath the main-boom and the foot of the mainsail, without injuring so
much as a ropeyarn.

"That's his long gun, Bob," said I; "his broadside guns would never
reach so far as this, and though we're just now in rather warm quarters,
we shall be out of range again very soon; and then, I think, we need
give ourselves no further trouble concerning him. Any way, you've got
something very like the fulfilment of the wish you expressed the other
day."

"Ay, ay, that's true, Hal, I have," answered he, with a quiet laugh;
"and I _do_ own it's a great satisfaction to me that we're carcumventin'
the chap this a way. I'll warrant he's walking the quarter-deck at this
minute fit to bite his fingers off wi' vexation at our slipping past him
in this style."

Here another shot from the brig came bounding after us; but we offered
him a much smaller mark than before, inasmuch as he was now nearly dead
astern of us, and we consequently presented an _end_ instead of a
broadside view to him.

The shot shaved us pretty close to windward nevertheless, striking the
water for the last time just short of our taffrail, and scurrying along
and ploughing up the surface close enough to give us a pretty copious
shower-bath of spray ere it finally sank just ahead of us.

The next shot, which quickly