‘Ay, ay,’ said Lovell.
‘Steady there—fire!’
The brig trembled to her very keel with the recoil of the gun. Lovell was less inexperienced in matters of gunnery than Herbert, and his first shot unlike that of honest Jack went plump into the deck of the stranger, filling the air all around with splinters and her crew with wounds.
‘Hurrah,’ said Terrence Moony in great glee, turning from swabbing out the gun to see the effect of the iron messenger. ‘Perhaps ye’s will like a few more of them pills; it don’t take but a small number for a dose any how.’
‘Keep her away,’ said Channing, to the helmsman of the brig. ‘Well done, Mr. Lovell, that shot planted just right, could’nt have been better done, and another right to the same spot—it’s a vital place.
‘Keep her away, I say,’ continued Channing to the man at the helm. ‘That’s it—hold her so,’ his object being still to pass at such a distance from the enemy as to prevent him from bringing his small guns to bear upon the brig; it being evident at the outset that he had no guns equal to that amidships the brig.
Jack Herbert had ranged-close up in the barque under the lee of the Constantine and within easy hailing distance. His voice was soon heard on board the brig.
‘Brig-a-hoy!’
‘Ay, ay, what’s wanting,’ asked Channing through his trumpet.
‘Shall I range up and get a few shots at the stranger, sir, with my short pieces?’ The guns will go off of themselves if we don’t use them soon!’