d, and to give a slight pull on the braces."

"What a mainsail the rogue carries! It is as broad as the instructions of
a roving commission, with a hoist like the promotion of an admiral's son!
How every thing pulls aboard him! A thorough-bred sails that brigantine,
let him come whence he may!"

"I think we near him! The rough water is helping us, and we are closing.
Steer small, fellow; steer small! You see the color of his mouldings
begins to show, when he lifts on the seas."

"The sun touches his side--and yet, Captain Ludlow, you may be right--for
here is a man in his fore-top, plainly enough to be seen. A shot, or two,
among his spars and sails, might now do service."

Ludlow affected not to hear; but the first-lieutenant having come on the
forecastle, seconded this opinion, by remarking that their position would
indeed enable them to use the chase-gun, without losing any distance. As
Trysail sustained his former assertion by truths that were too obvious to
be refuted, the commander of the cruiser reluctantly issued an order to
clear away the forward gun, and to shift it into the bridle-port. The
interested and attentive seamen were not long in performing this service;
and a report was quickly made to the captain, that the piece was ready.

Ludlow then descended from his post on the night-head, and pointed the
cannon himself.

"Knock away the quoin, entirely;" he said to the captain of the gun, when
he had got the range; "now mind her when she lifts, forward; keep the ship
steady, Sir--fire!"

Those gentleman 'who live at home at ease,' are often surprised to read
of combats, in which so much powder, and hundreds and even thousands of
shot, are expended, with so little loss of human life; while a struggle on
the land, of less duration, and seemingly of less obstinacy, shall sweep
away a multitude. The secret of the difference lies in the uncertainty of
aim, on an element as restless as the sea. The largest ship is rarely
quite motionless, when on the open ocean; and it is not necessary to tell
the reader, that the smallest variation in the direction of a gun at its
muzzle, becomes magnified to many yards at the distance of a few hundred
feet. Marine gunnery has no little resemblance to the skill of the fowler;
since a calculation for a change in the position of the object must
commonly be made in both cases, with the additional embarrassment on the
part of the seaman, of an allowance for a complicated movemen