h, before Lieutenant
Maynard could turn, there came a loud and deafening crash, and then
instantly another, and a third, and almost as instantly a crackling
and rending of broken wood. There were clean yellow splinters flying
everywhere. A man fell violently against the lieutenant, nearly
overturning him, but he caught at the stays and so saved himself. For
one tense moment he stood holding his breath. Then all about him arose
a sudden outcry of groans and shouts and oaths. The man who had fallen
against him was lying face down upon the deck. His thighs were
quivering, and a pool of blood was spreading and running out from
under him. There were other men down, all about the deck. Some were
rising; some were trying to rise; some only moved.

There was a distant sound of yelling and cheering and shouting. It was
from the pirate sloop. The pirates were rushing about upon her decks.
They had pulled the cannon back, and, through the grunting sound of
the groans about him, the lieutenant could distinctly hear the thud
and punch of the rammers, and he knew they were going to shoot again.

The low rail afforded almost no shelter against such a broadside, and
there was nothing for it but to order all hands below for the time
being.

"Get below!" roared out the lieutenant. "All hands get below and lie
snug for further orders!" In obedience the men ran scrambling below
into the hold, and in a little while the decks were nearly clear
except for the three dead men and some three or four wounded. The
boatswain, crouching down close to the wheel, and the lieutenant
himself were the only others upon deck. Everywhere there were smears
and sprinkles of blood. "Where's Brookes?" the lieutenant called out.

"He's hurt in the arm, sir, and he's gone below," said the boatswain.

Thereupon the lieutenant himself walked over to the forecastle hatch,
and, hailing the gunner, ordered him to get up another ladder, so that
the men could be run up on deck if the pirates should undertake to
come aboard. At that moment the boatswain at the wheel called out
that the villains were going to shoot again, and the lieutenant,
turning, saw the gunner aboard of the pirate sloop in the act of
touching the iron to the touchhole. He stooped down. There was another
loud and deafening crash of cannon, one, two, three--four--the last
two almost together--and almost instantly the boatswain called out,
"'Tis the sloop, sir! look at the sloop!"

[Illustration: