d he happened to be the craft for which we were
looking. And of this I became increasingly convinced as we gradually
neared the brig; for although she was now painted dead black to her
bends, without any relief whatever, of colour, there were certain little
details and peculiarities of shape and rig that I felt convinced I had
seen before.

At length, about three bells, that is to say half-past nine-o'clock, in
the forenoon watch, the skipper of the brig seemed to have made up his
mind to a definite course of action, for he suddenly put up his helm,
squared away, and came running straight down for us. Whereupon we in
the schooner at once went to quarters, cast loose the guns, opened the
powder magazine, and got a good supply of ammunition up on deck, at the
same time hoisting our colours. The stranger, apparently, was not quite
so willing as ourselves to display the hue of his bunting; at all events
we saw none. But this might have been due to the fact that his gaff-end
was obscured from our view by the spread of his topsails. When about
half a mile to windward of us the brig, which we could now see was a
most beautiful craft, suddenly rounded-to, clewed up her courses and
royals, hauled down her flying-jib, and, throwing open her ports, let
fly her whole broadside of 9-pounders at us, the shot humming close over
our heads and considerably cutting up our rigging. And at the same
instant a great black flag went soaring aloft to her gaff-end!

"So," said I to Simpson, who was standing close beside me, "that clears
the ground and enables us to know just where we are. With that black
rag staring us in the face there is no possibility of making a mistake.
Return his fire, lads, as your guns come to bear, and be careful not to
throw a single shot away. Aim at his spars first; then, when we have
crippled him, we will close and finish him off."

But in talking thus I was reckoning without my host, for the brig
carried more than twice our weight of metal in her broadside batteries,
and a long thirty-two on her forecastle as against our own long
eighteen. In a word, I soon found that I had caught a Tartar, for her
crew were quite as nimble as our own, and quite as good shots, which was
worse. Thus, when it came to playing the dismantling game, which seemed
to be the object of both craft, we soon found that we were suffering
much more severely than our antagonist. The skipper of the brig saw
this quite as clearly as w