junk, which was already coming to, at once fell off again at the precise
instant when her whole starboard broadside burst into flame and smoke,
the missiles luckily passing just ahead of us and very considerably
damaging our figurehead, but doing no worse injury. By a most fortunate
chance I had made my lucky shot at the exact moment which alone could
save us from disaster. To give the pirates their due, at least a dozen
men instantly sprang up on the poop, and rushed aft to replace the
injured helmsman; but our people had been watching through a number of
peep-holes what was happening, and no sooner did they see the Chinese on
the poop than they leaped to their feet, and opened fire upon them with
such murderous effect that half of them dropped, while the other half
turned and fled from the poop, seeking shelter under cover of their
craft's bulwarks.

Left thus to herself, the junk gradually fell broad off, presenting her
quarter to us. The opportunity thus afforded to pour into her a
partially raking fire was much too good to let slip, and I shouted to
the boatswain and Chips to send the contents of their pieces into her
starboard bulwark, hoping that some at least of the bullets would enter
her open ports and do a certain amount of execution. The two men had
evidently been expecting such an order and had got their pieces ready
levelled. A couple of seconds later the two six-pounders barked out
together, and the two hundred bullets peppered the junk's bulwarks most
handsomely, many of them penetrating the planking, as I could both see
and hear; for the next instant a dreadful, ear-splitting yell arose from
the deck of the craft, telling a tale of very severe punishment. But
that was not all; the two round shot likewise crashed through the
bulwarks very effectively, one of them dismounting a gun, while the
other brought the craft's mainmast down, thus effectually placing her
_hors de combat_. Those two shots must have wrought terrible havoc
among the junk's crew, for not only did they not attempt to return our
fire, but they allowed their vessel to run broad off before the wind,
squaring away their foresail the better to do so; and presently the junk
in our wake abandoned the chase and bore up to join her consort. We
thus emerged marvellously well from a predicament that at one moment
threatened to be exceedingly serious, and that, too, without the
slightest injury to so much as a single one of our company.

I