"Bravo, my little Leda!" responded my friend; "she is trimmed and masted to perfection! You see, Jack, how a square-rigged craft has the advantage over even a sharp little serpent with a floating sheet, like that rascally schooner!"
Her crew still continued to blaze at us with their rifles; but ere long the bullets fell far short, for we were now more than a thousand yards apart, and with cheers of derision we continued to surge through the darkening ocean.
"If we had only possessed a few round-shot, we might have knocked some of their sticks away with these two useless carronades," said Hartly, as he now relinquished the wheel to Hans Peterkin, his second mate, and ordered glasses of grog to be served all round. "Corporal Cuffy, do you think you could have knocked her mainboom away, when the sea is so smooth?"
"Like to knock all him brains out!" replied the Congo-man with a savage grin; for, inspired by some of his old African instincts, Snowball was the only person on board who regretted that we had not enjoyed a hand-to-hand conflict with these outlaws.
But now the darkness of the descending night, together with the gathering clouds and haze, concealed the schooner from us.
We extinguished all lights on board, and ere long when a red spark about seven miles astern indicated that she was still tracking us, Hartly took in his studding-sails, reduced the canvas on the brig, brought his larboard tacks on board, and bore up for Cape St. John, the boundary of the French shore, to land our wounded man, who was suffering great agony from his compound fracture, and with whom, as we had no medical officer, it would have been impossible to pursue our voyage.
This rencontre, chase, and escape, formed a staple topic for conversation to all on board, and till the night was far advanced no one thought of turning in.
When day broke we found ourselves close in shore, on the northern side of the great Bay of Notre Dame, with Cape St. John bearing about three miles off on our lee bow. We swept the sea with our glasses, but not a sail was visible in the offing, nor all along the snow-clad coast. Save Cuffy Snowball, all expressed their satisfaction at this; but we were not yet entirely done with our sable acquaintance, the Black Schooner.