he craft had been adopted
entirely upon the strength of my representations; and if the brig
should, after all, turn out to be the _Vestale_ French gun-brig as she
had pretended to be, our skipper might perhaps involve himself in a
considerable amount of trouble. It was therefore with a sigh of real
and genuine relief that I heard a shot come whistling close past us from
the brig in reply to our own.

Captain Vernon, too, was evidently much relieved, for he ejaculated in
tones of great satisfaction:

"Good! she has fired a shotted gun at us and refuses to show her
colours. _Now_ my course is perfectly clear. Try the effect of another
gun on her, Mr Armitage, and aim at her spars; she is skimming along
there like a witch, and if we are not careful will give us the slip
yet."

Armitage, who was in charge of the battery forward, upon this began
peppering away at her in earnest; but though the shot made daylight
through her canvas every time, no damage was done either to her spars or
rigging, and it began to be only too evident that she was gradually
creeping away from us. To make matters worse, too, her crew were just
as smart with their guns as we were with ours, in fact a trifle more so,
for before a quarter of an hour had passed several of our ropes,
fortunately unimportant ones, had been cut; and at length a thud and a
crack aloft turned all eyes in that direction, to see the fore royal-
mast topple over to leeward.

Captain Vernon stamped upon the deck in the height of his vexation.

"Away aloft, there, and clear the wreck," he exclaimed, "and, for
Heaven's sake, Mr Armitage, see if you cannot cripple the fellow. Ten
minutes more and he will be out of range; then `good-bye' to him. I
wish to goodness our people at home would condescend to take a lesson in
shipbuilding from the men who turn out these slavers; we should then
have a chance of making a capture occasionally."

Whilst the skipper had been thus giving vent to his rapidly-increasing
chagrin, Smellie had walked forward; and presently I caught sight of him
stooping down and squinting along the sights of the gun which had just
been re-loaded and run out. A few seconds of anxious suspense followed,
and then came a flash and a sharp report, followed the next moment by a
ringing cheer from the men on the forecastle. The brig's fore-yard had
been shot away in the slings.

The craft at once shot up into the wind and lay apparently at our mercy.

"Ram