ted, "The schooner has opened fire!"

"_Sacre-e-e_!" I heard Leroy exclaim between his teeth. "The one thing
that I was afraid of! He has thought better of sending his boats,
then!"

Marcel answered something, but what it was I could not catch, and then
the pair of them came racing up on deck. They had scarcely arrived when
another shot came from the schooner, crashing through the bulwarks just
forward of the fore rigging, dismounting a gun, and playing havoc with
the men who crowded that part of the deck. Five were killed outright
and nine wounded by that one shot and the splinters that it created.
Leroy at once called the crew to quarters and ordered them to return the
schooner's fire; but the latter was too far off for either the
carronades or the 6-pounders to reach her; and my spirits began to rise,
for if the schooner could only continue as she had begun she would soon
compel _La Mouette_ to strike. And there was every prospect of this
happening, for the _Gadfly_ had now got our range to a nicety, and shot
after shot hulled us, playing the very mischief with us, dismounting
another gun, strewing our decks with killed and wounded, and cutting up
our rigging, but, most unfortunately, never touching our spars. Leroy
stamped fore and aft the deck, cursing like a madman, shaking his fist
at the schooner, glowering savagely at me, and whistling for a wind.

"Give me a breeze!" he shouted; "give me a breeze, and I will run down
and blow that schooner out of the water!"

Presently his prayer was answered, but not quite as he desired; for,
while we watched, the clouds broke away to the eastward, and presently
we saw a dark line stealing along the water toward the schooner. Ten
minutes later all hands aboard her were busily engaged in making sail,
and by the time that the wind reached her she was all ready for it.
Then, as it filled her sails, she put up her helm and squared away for
us, running down before the wind and yawing from time to time to give us
another shot. But it was a fatal mistake; she should have continued to
play the game of long bowls, in which case she could have done as she
pleased with us; by keeping away, however, and running down to us, she
gave Leroy just the chance he wanted; he waited until she was well
within range of his carronades, and then, double-shotting them and
watching his opportunity, he gave her the whole of his starboard
broadside, and down came her foremast and main-topmast