was in a pretty mess. A ringing cheer,
which those on board the brig might almost have heard, went up from our
lads at this sight, followed by a hoarse murmur of:

"Lookout! now Johnny Crapeau has lost his temper, and the brig is going
to get _loco_ in 'arnest!" as the frigate put her helm down and fired
her whole broadside at the flying craft. There was not so very much
damage done, after all, so far as the brig was concerned. Her peak-
halliards were cut and she temporarily lost the use of her main trysail,
and we could see a rope's-end or two streaming out here and there in the
wind; but that was all, excepting that her canvas showed a few extra
eyelet-holes. With the frigate, however, it was different; by yielding
to his feeling of exasperation, as he had, her skipper had been betrayed
into a very unseamanlike act, in luffing his ship with all her studding-
sails upon her, and the result was that he lost the remainder of his
booms in an instant, and found himself in a worse pickle than ever.

By this time the brig had passed far enough to leeward of us to be able
to clearly distinguish the colour of our bunting; and seeing also that
we were indisputably holding our luff so as to close with the frigate,
she accepted us as a friend, notwithstanding our decidedly rakish
appearance, and at once coolly began to shorten sail, evidently now
determined, with our aid, to try conclusions with her big antagonist.
It was about time for us to do the same; we accordingly clewed up and
furled our royal and topgallant-sail, hauled down and stowed the gaff-
topsail and main-topmast staysail, brailed in the foresail, and triced
up the tack of the mainsail; which left the schooner in condition to be
worked by less than a dozen hands. By the time that this had been
accomplished, the running gear hauled taut, rope's-ends coiled down, and
everything made ship-shape on board us, we had arrived within a distance
of something like two miles of the frigate, at which juncture she fired
a shot at us from her bow gun, possibly as a hint to us not to interfere
with her. The shot fell short several yards.

"Umph!" remarked Woodford from his post at the helm, "nothing very
terrific about that! A twelve-pounder, apparently, and a shockingly
poor aim. Our thirty-two will make the Johnnies open their eyes with
astonishment, I expect."

"Yes," said I; "we ought to be able to reach her from here, so I'll let
`Long Tom' return their complimen