. This movement seemed to be expected all round--and it
certainly had been delayed to the very last moment--for the leading
French ship fell off three or four points, and as the frigate was
exactly end-on to her, let fly the contents of all the guns on her
forecastle, as well as of those on her main-deck, as far aft as they
could be brought to bear. One of the top-sail-sheets of the frigate was
shot away by this rapid and unexpected fire, and some little damage was
done to the standing rigging; but luckily, none of immediate moment.
Captain Denham was active, and the instant he found his top-sail
flapping, he ordered it clewed up, and the main-sail loosed. The latter
was set, close-reefed, as the ship came to the wind on the larboard
tack, and by the time every thing was braced up and hauled aft, on that
tack, the main-top-sail was ready to be sheeted home, anew. During the
few minutes that these evolutions required, Sir Gervaise kept his eye
riveted on the vessel; and when he saw her fairly round, and trimmed by
the wind, again, with the main-sail dragging her ahead, to own the truth,
he felt mentally relieved.

"Not a minute too soon, Sir Gervaise," observed the cautious Greenly,
smiling. "I should not be surprised if Denham hears more from that
fellow at the head of the French line. His weather chase-guns are
exactly in a range with the frigate, and the two upper ones might be
worked, well enough."

"I think not, Greenly. The forecastle gun, possibly; scarcely any thing
below it."

Sir Gervaise proved to be partly right and partly wrong. The Frenchman
_did_ attempt a fire with his main-deck gun; but, at the first plunge of
the ship, a sea slapped up against her weather-bow, and sent a column of
water through the port, that drove half its crew into the lee-scuppers.
In the midst of this waterspout, the gun exploded, the loggerhead having
been applied an instant before, giving a sort of chaotic wildness to the
scene in-board. This satisfied the party below; though that on the
forecastle fared better. The last fired their gun several times, and
always without success. This failure proceeded from a cause that is
seldom sufficiently estimated by nautical gunners; the shot having
swerved from the line of sight, by the force of the wind against which
it flew, two or three hundred feet, by the time it had gone the mile
that lay between the vessels. Sir Gervaise anxiously watched the effect
of the fire, and perceiving that