“That will just suit me. We will run out to sea at once; that will make him believe we are afraid of him.”
Scarcely had the boats been got on board, and the cutter’s head turned offshore, when the schooner was seen issuing from the inlet. Will ordered every sail to be crowded on, and had the satisfaction of seeing the schooner following his example. He then set the whole of the crew to shift the long-tom from the bow to the stern. Its muzzle was just high [pg 164]enough to project above the taffrail, and in order to hide it better he had hammocks and other material piled on each side of it so as to form a breastwork three feet high.
“They will think,” he said, “that we have put this up as a protection against shot from his bow-chasers.”
After watching the schooner for a quarter of an hour, Will said:
“I don’t think she gains upon us at all; lower a sail over the bow to deaden her way. A small topsail will do; I only want to check her half a knot an hour.”
It was an hour before the schooner yawed and fired her bow-guns.
“That is good,” Will said to Dimchurch; “it shows that she doesn’t carry a long-tom. I thought she didn’t, but they might have hidden it, as we have done. Don’t answer them yet; I don’t want to fire till we get within half a mile of her; then they shall have it as hot as they like.”
The schooner continued to gain slowly, occasionally firing her bow-chasers. When she had come up to within a mile of L’Agile the cutter was yawed and two broadside guns fired; they were purposely aimed somewhat wide, as Will was anxious that the pirates should not suspect the weight of his metal, and did not wish, by inflicting some small injury, to deter her from continuing the chase. The schooner evidently depended upon the vastly superior strength of her crew to carry the cutter by boarding, and so abstained from attempting to injure her, as the less damage she suffered the better value she would be as a prize.
“They are not more than half a mile off now, I think, sir,” Dimchurch said at last.
“Very well then, we will let her have it.”