t when he
fired the schooner's foremast was seen to topple over, and her head flew
up into the wind, thus presenting her stern to the cutter.

"She is a lame duck now," Will said, "but we may as well take her mainmast
out of her too. Fire away, and take as good aim as you did last time."

Ten more shots were fired, and with the last the pirate's mainmast went
over the side.

"Well done, Dimchurch! Now we have her at our mercy. We will sail
backwards and forwards under her stern and rake her with grape. I don't
want to injure her more than is necessary, but I do want to kill as many
of the crew as possible; it is better for them to die that way than to be
taken to Jamaica to be hanged."

For an hour the cutter kept at work crossing and recrossing her
antagonist's stern, and each time she poured in a volley from two
broadside guns and the long-tom. The stern of the schooner was knocked
almost to pieces, and the grape-shot carried death along her decks.

"I am only afraid that they will blow her up," Will said; "but probably,
as they have not done so already, her captain and most of her officers are
killed, for it would require a desperado to undertake that job."

At last the black flag was hoisted on a spar at the stern, and then
lowered again. When they saw this the crew of _L'Agile_ stopped firing,
and sent up cheer after cheer.

"Now we must be careful, sir," Dimchurch said; "those scoundrels are quite
capable of pretending to surrender, and then, when we board her, blowing
their ship and us into the air."

"You are right, Dimchurch. They might very well do that, for they must
know well enough that they can expect no mercy."

Bringing the cutter to within a hundred yards of the schooner, Will
shouted:

"Have you a boat that can swim?" and receiving a reply in the negative,
shouted back: "Very well, then, I will drop one to you."

He then placed the cutter exactly to windward of the schooner, and,
lowering one of the boats, to which a rope was attached, let it drift down
to the prize.

"Now," he shouted, "fasten a hawser to that boat; the largest you have."

There was evidently some discussion among the few men gathered on the deck
of the pirate, and, seeing that they hesitated, Will shouted:

"Do as you are ordered, or I will open fire again."

This decided the pirates, and in a short time the end of a hawser was tied
to one of the thwarts of the boat. The boat was then hauled back to
_L'Agile_, and w