hich
surprised the men who were standing near and witnessed these
proceedings.

"I won't. Ho, lads! do you wish to be sent to the bottom by a--"

The remainder of this speech was cut short by the sudden descent of
Gascoyne's knuckles on the forehead of the mate, who dropped on the deck
as if he had been felled with a sledge-hammer. Scraggs laughed outright
with satisfaction.

"Remove him," said Gascoyne.

"Overboard?" inquired Scraggs, with a bland smile.

"Below," said the captain; and Scraggs was fain to content himself with
carrying the insensible form of his superior officer to his berth;
taking pains, however, to bump his head carefully against every spar and
corner and otherwise convenient projection on the way down.

In a few minutes more the schooner was rushing through the milk-white
foam that covered the dangerous coral reef named the Long Shoal; and the
Talisman lay to, not daring to venture into such a place, but pouring
shot and shell into her bold little adversary with terrible effect, as
the tattered sails and flying cordage showed. The fire was steadily
replied to by Long Tom, whose heavy shots came crashing repeatedly
through the hull of the man-of-war.

The large boat, meanwhile, had been picked up by the Talisman, after
having rescued Mr. Mason and Henry, both of whom were placed in the gig.
This light boat was now struggling to make the ship; but, owing to the
strength of the squall, her diminished crew were unable to effect this;
they therefore ran ashore, to await the issue of the fight and the
storm.

For some time the Avenger stood on her wild course unharmed, passing
close to huge rocks on either side of her, over which the sea burst in
clouds of foam. Gascoyne still stood at the wheel, guiding the vessel
with consummate skill and daring, while the men looked on in awe and in
breathless expectation, quite regardless of the shot which flew around
them, and altogether absorbed by the superior danger by which they were
menaced.

The surface of the sea was so universally white, that there was no line
of dark water to guide the pirate captain on his bold and desperate
course. He was obliged to trust almost entirely to his intimate
knowledge of the coast, and to the occasional patches in the surrounding
waste where the comparative flatness of the boiling flood indicated less
shallow water. As the danger increased, the smile left Gascoyne's lips;
but the flashing of his bright eyes and his