“About that, sir,” growled the big Quartermaster, Black Henderson.
Webster jumped down, and, with a smile on his face, fired the gun.
There was a deafening report, which shivered the glass in the chart-room, and when they drove through the smoke, and steadied themselves after the shock, they caught faintly the scream of the shell, and saw it stream high above the black boat.
“That’ll scare the life out of them,” growled a sailor, with a chuckle.
He forgot that there were men after his own metal on board, and the little boat paid not the least attention to the warning.
A little patch of red instead streamed out from her bare pole of a mast, the meteor flag of Old England, which no British seaman can see without a glow of pride, and a look of consternation came into their faces.
They had forgotten about the cruiser steaming in their wake, showing nothing now but its white fighting deck, surmounted by two huge funnels; but she kept a watchful eye on the swift catcher, and at the audacious act of hostility had bristled with anger. Two small bow chasers projecting from the bulge in her bows spoke together, and a sharp reminder in the shape of a nine-pounder went screaming over the low craft, to plunge in the sea a cable’s length ahead, while the second, in a sort of devil’s “duck-and-drake” hops, sped away.
Captain Pardoe turned swiftly, and shook his fist at the cruiser.
Miss Laura had ducked her head at the vicious scream of one shot, and started aside at the angry splash and wild screech of the other, then stood trembling from head to foot while she bit her lip in vexation at her weakness.
Captain Pardoe noted her emotion, and swallowing his own rage, said gruffly: