falling
short of the object at which it was aimed. For some half-hour or more
the frigate did not throw another shot away; the schooner, meantime,
made several tacks in shore, but the wind veered as she went about, and
she gained far less ground than if she had continued on one tack. Still
she managed nearly to weather the eastern point. The _Cerberus_,
however, was by this time standing directly towards her, a point off the
wind, so as to make her escape almost impossible. Again the frigate
fired--the water was smooth, and her gunnery was good. The shot struck
the schooner's hull. Another and another followed. Still she stood on.
She was in stays; another tack or two would carry her round the point,
and there were reefs amid which she might possibly make her escape, when
a shot, flying higher than the rest, struck the head of her main-mast.
Over the side went the topmast and topsail, down came the mainsail, and
the vessel's head paying off, in five minutes she was hard and fast on a
reef. The frigate had, meantime, been shortening sail, and scarcely had
the schooner struck, when she dropped her anchor in a position
completely to command the wreck with her guns.

"The villains will get their due now. Hurrah!" cried O'Grady. "But
see, they are lowering their boats to escape on shore. If they fall in
with us, they will knock us on the head to a certainty. Won't
discretion with us be the best part of valour? and hadn't we just best
get out of their way?"

"They will scarcely attempt to come on shore here, I should think,"
observed Devereux. "They will more probably pull along close in with
the shore, and, if they can, get away from the island altogether."

The attempt of the pirates to escape was immediately seen from the
frigate, which, thereon, opened her fire to prevent them, while at the
same time her boats were lowered to cut them off. The frigate's shot
had knocked one of the schooner's boats to pieces. Most of her crew
crowded into the other two, which shoved off, leaving some on board, who
loudly entreated them to return. But, overloaded as they were, they
could not have done so had they wished, and it was with difficulty they
reached the shore, swearing vengeance on the heads of their victors.

"It's time for us, at all events, to be off, if we would save our
throats from being cut, or our heads from being broken," cried O'Grady,
as he saw them about to land.

The rest of the party agreed with