This was scarcely done when the barque sent a shot towards the brig in defiance. The Constance did not have the appearance of an armed vessel when seen from a distance and her ports closed, and indeed she appeared much inferior to her true size by reason of her sitting low in the water and the height of her waist hiding her armament. Even the long tom amidships was so covered over with ropes and other ship gear, that unless a close observer, one would not have discovered it. The captain of the English barque evidently expected to make an easy prey of her, and therefore began to fire, by way of bravado, long before he had got within gun shot with his own light metal.
‘Clear away the long tom,’ said Channing.’
The gear was cast from its fastenings, and the deck about it was cleared of the heaps of rubbish and all obstacles about it.
‘We’ll play him a game of long bowls, Mr. Herbert,’ said the captain of the brig, ‘and this we can do with safety if your surmise with regard to his armament be true.’
‘I’m the more convinced of it, sir, from the fact of his throwing those small shot at us from the distance he holds,’ said Herbert.
‘Just so, no doubt, step forward there and oversee that gun, don’t throw away a single shot, we shall need them all.’
‘Ay, ay, sir,’ said the prompt and obedient Herbert.
Herbert pointed the gun, and though he was an excellent sailor, but in the matter of gunnery, he had but very little if any experience. His first shot therefore sunk somewhere about half way between the two vessels. The next broke the water about a quarter of a mile ahead of the barque, and the next half as far astern. While he was loading the fourth time, Channing called to him cheerfully, saying: ‘You have got the elevation, Herbert, now put a shot right between those two last and you have the aim.’
‘Ay, ay, sir,’ said the mortified mate, who could not but be a little chagrined at his unfortunate luck, albeit it was new business to him.
Bang! went the long tom again, and Herbert leaping upon a gun carriage, raised himself above the waist of the Constance, to watch the effect of the shot. Scarcely had the heavy report of the gun died away to leeward, before the splinters were seen to fly from the deck of the barque in great abundance.