to have a look-out, and to keep the Kannakas in order. As it was
now understood that the attack must be on the capital, there was every
reason for taking this course.

All the vessels were soon under way again. The pirates missed the
Martha, which they rightly enough supposed had gone ahead. They were
evidently a good deal puzzled about the channel, but supposed it must be
somewhere to windward. In the mean time, the governor kept the Anne
manoeuvring around the shoal, in the hope of luring the ship on it. Nor
was he without rational hopes of success, for the brigs separated, one
going close to each side of the sound, to look for the outlet, while the
ship kept beating up directly in its centre, making a sinuous course
towards the schooner, which was always near the shallow water. At length
the governor was fully rewarded for his temerity; the admiral had made a
stretch that carried him laterally past the lee side of the shoal, and
when he went about, he looked directly for the Anne, which was standing
back and forth near its weather margin. Here the governor held on, until
he had the satisfaction of seeing the ship just verging on the weather
side of the shoal, when he up helm, and stood off to leeward, as if
intending to pass out of the _cul-de-sac_ by the way he had entered,
giving his pursuers the slip. This bold manoeuvre took the pirate
admiral by surprise, and being in the vessel that was much the nearest
to the Anne, he up helm, and was plumped on the shoal with strong way on
him, in less than five minutes! The instant the governor saw this, he
hauled his wind and beat back again, passing the broadside of the ship
with perfect impunity, her people being too much occupied with their own
situation, to think of their guns, or of molesting him.

The strange ship had run aground within half a mile of the spot where
the twelve-pounder was planted, and that gun now opened on her with
great effect. She lay quartering to this new enemy, and the range was no
sooner obtained, than every shot hulled her. The governor now landed,
and went to work seriously, first ordering the Anne carried through the
pass, to place her beyond the reach of the brigs. A forge happened to be
in the Anne, to make some repairs to her iron work, and this forge, a
small one it was true, was taken ashore, and an attempt was made to heat
some shot in it. The shot had been put into the forge an hour or two
before, but a fair trial was not made until