as a fierce "hurrah!" from a hundred throats, so loud, so
deep, so full of volume, it made the ship vibrate, and rang in the
creeping-on pirate's ears. Fierce, but cunning, he saw mischief in those
shortened sails, and that Union Jack, the terror of his tribe, rising to
a British cheer; he lowered his mainsail, and crawled up on the weather
quarter. Arrived within a cable's length, he double reefed his foresail
to reduce his rate of sailing nearly to that of the ship; and the next
moment a tongue of flame, and then a gash of smoke, issued from his lee
bow, and the ball flew screaming like a seagull over the _Agra's_ mizzen
top. He then put his helm up, and fired his other bow-chaser, and sent
the shot hissing and skipping on the water past the ship. This prologue
made the novices wince. Bayliss wanted to reply with a carronade; but
Dodd forbade him sternly, saying, "If we keep him aloof we are done for."

The pirate drew nearer, and fired both guns in succession, hulled the
_Agra_ amidships, and sent an eighteen pound ball through her foresail.
Most of the faces were pale on the quarter-deck; it was very trying to be
shot at, and hit, and make no return. The next double discharge sent one
shot smash through the stern cabin window, and splintered the bulwark
with another, wounding a seaman slightly.

"LIE DOWN FORWARD!" shouted Dodd, through his trumpet. "Bayliss, give
him a shot."

The carronade was fired with a tremendous report, but no visible effect.
The pirate crept nearer, steering in and out like a snake to avoid the
carronades, and firing those two heavy guns alternately into the devoted
ship. He hulled the _Agra_ now nearly every shot.

The two available carronades replied noisily, and jumped as usual; they
sent one thirty-two pound shot clean through the schooner's deck and
side; but that was literally all they did worth speaking of.

"Curse them!" cried Dodd; "load them with grape! They are not to be
trusted with ball. And all my eighteen-pounders dumb! The coward won't
come alongside and give them a chance."

At the next discharge the pirate chipped the mizzen mast, and knocked a
sailor into dead pieces on the forecastle. Dodd put his helm down ere
the smoke cleared, and got three carronades to bear, heavily laden with
grape. Several pirates fell, dead or wounded, on the crowded deck, and
some holes appeared in the foresail; this one interchange was quite in
favor of the ship.

But the les