But he evidently had no notion of letting us have our own way in this matter, without a pretty vigorous protest on his part; for as we were still watching him, we saw the brig slowly luff into the wind; his fore-sheet was raised for a moment, a flash of flame and a puff of white smoke darted suddenly from his forecastle, and then we saw the jets spouting up where the shot struck the water, as it came ricocheting towards us. He had aimed apparently so as to throw the shot across our fore-foot; but it fell short by about fifty feet.
“Do that again, you lubber!” exclaimed Bob, contemptuously apostrophising the brig. “Three more such fool’s tricks as that, and we’ll say good-bye t’ye without ever having been within range. See how long it takes him to pay off ag’in, Harry; very near lost his way altogether, when he’d ’a had to box her off with his headyards; and by the time he’d done that we should be well clear of him. Well, I did think the man had more sense than to do the like of that.”
Friend Johnson evidently saw his mistake as clearly as we did, for he fired no more until we had crept up fairly ahead of him. Just as we were crossing his bows, however, and had got his masts in tone—by which time he had drawn considerably nearer us—the brig fell off a little, not to repeat her former error, and again came the flash, the smoke, and the ringing report.
“Here it comes straight for us this time, and no mistake,” exclaimed Bob, as the water-jets again marked the course of the shot. “Scaldings! out of the road all of us that’s got thin skulls,” continued he, as the shot came skipping across the water in such long bounds as showed we were within range. “Well missed!” added he, as the shot struck the water close to us, and bounded fairly over the boat, passing close beneath the main-boom and the foot of the mainsail, without injuring so much as a ropeyarn.
“That’s his long gun, Bob,” said I; “his broadside guns would never reach so far as this, and though we’re just now in rather warm quarters, we shall be out of range again very soon; and then, I think, we need give ourselves no further trouble concerning him. Any way, you’ve got something very like the fulfilment of the wish you expressed the other day.”
“Ay, ay, that’s true, Hal, I have,” answered he, with a quiet laugh; “and I do own it’s a great satisfaction to me that we’re carcumventin’ the chap this a way. I’ll warrant he’s walking the quarter-deck at this minute fit to bite his fingers off wi’ vexation at our slipping past him in this style.”
Here another shot from the brig came bounding after us; but we offered him a much smaller mark than before, inasmuch as he was now nearly dead astern of us, and we consequently presented an end instead of a broadside view to him.
The shot shaved us pretty close to windward nevertheless, striking the water for the last time just short of our taffrail, and scurrying along and ploughing up the surface close enough to give us a pretty copious shower-bath of spray ere it finally sank just ahead of us.
The next shot, which quickly followed, passed almost as close to leeward; and the third came straight enough, but fell just short of us.
After this he fired no more.