bout it.
Remember, if we are caught away goes your chance of making a fortune out
of friend Giuseppe yonder."

This suggestion aroused anew their courage, or their cupidity, and with
a shout they sprang once more to their feet and to the sweeps.

Meanwhile, the breeze had crept in until it had overtaken the frigate,
which at once filled on the starboard tack, keeping her luff until she
had gathered good way, when she squared away and once more came booming
into the calm belt, nearing us almost half a mile by this manoeuvre.

"It is no good, excellencies; we shall have to give up!" exclaimed
Carera, coming aft. "We are now as close in as we dare go; and if that
diabolical frigate fires another broadside at us she will blow us out of
the water. Port your helm, senor--hard a-port! the coral is close under
our keel."

"Hard a-port!" I responded. "But why give up, my good fellow? The
frigate is as close now as she dare come to us. You may take my word
for it that her captain will not run the risk of plumping his ship
ashore for the sake of such an insignificant craft as the _Pinta_. Ha,
look out! here comes another broadside."

How we escaped that second storm of shot I am sure I cannot tell, for we
were now almost within point-blank range; but escape we did, although
for a single instant the whole air around us seemed filled with iron, so
thick and close did the shot fly about us. The sail was pierced in
three places, but beyond that no harm was done.

"He is after us with the boats! He will waste no more powder and shot
upon us," exclaimed Courtenay; and sure enough on looking astern I saw
two boats just dropping into the water.

"We must give up--we must give up," cried our crew as they saw this; and
leaving their sweeps they came aft in a body with the request that
Carera would hoist the Spanish ensign and haul it down again in token of
our surrender.

"No, no," I exclaimed; "see how the breeze is creeping down to us; it
will be here as soon as the boats--or sooner, if you stick to the
sweeps--and then I will engage that we scrape clear somehow. Is there
no place, Carera, that we can run into, and so dodge the frigate! We
can laugh at the boats if we once get the breeze."

"Place! of course there is!" exclaimed the skipper, his courage again
reviving; "there is the Boca de Guajaba, not half a mile from us on our
larboard bow. Once in there we can run up at the back of Romano--I know
the channel--an