ng to the fray.
The thought fired her soul, and she sprang up to look over the side.

"What," she exclaimed, for the little cutter on close quarters looked
insignificant indeed by the side of the noble vessel that so
scornfully bore down on her. "Is that all!"

"They have a gun, and we have none," answered Captain Jack. "Down,
Madeleine! down behind, in the name of God!"

"Why should I crouch if you stand up?"

The man's heart swelled within him; but as he looked with proud
admiration at the cloaked and hooded figure by his side, the cutter's
gun fired for the third time. With roar and hiss the shot came over
the bow of the schooner, as she dipped into the trough, and raking the
deck, crashed through her side on the quarter. Molly gave a shriek and
staggered.

A fearful malediction burst from Captain Jack's lips: he left the
tiller and sprang to her.

One of the hands, believing his skipper to have been struck, ran to
the helm, and again put the vessel on her proper course which a few
moments later was to make her shoot past the revenue cutter.

"Wounded, Madeleine! Wounded through my fault! By the living God, they
shall pay for this!"

"Oh," groaned Molly, "something has cut me in the arm and shoulder."
Then rapidly gathering composure, "But it's not much, I can move it."

At one glance the sailor saw from the position of the shot hole in the
vessel's side that the wound could only have been made by a splinter.
But the possibility of exposing his beloved to such another risk was
not to be borne--a murderous rush of blood flew to his brain.

The cutter, perceiving the tactics of the swifter schooner, was now
tacking about with the intention of bringing the gun to bear upon her
once more as she attempted to slip by. But Captain Jack in his
new-fanned fury had made up his mind to a desperate cast of the die.

"Starboard, hard a starboard," he called out in a voice that his men
had known well in old fighting days and which was heard as far as the
cutter itself. "They shall not fire that gun again!"

With a brief, "Starboard it is, sir," the man who had taken the helm
brought the ship round, and the silent, active crew in a trice were
ready to go about. Majestically the schooner changed her course, and
as the meaning of the manoeuvre became fearfully apparent, shouts
and oaths arose in confusion from the cutter.

"What are you going to do?" eagerly asked Molly, enthralled by the
superb motion of the vessel u