This time the mate had better luck, his second shot smashing through the chart-room and completely wrecking it.
"That ought to bring them to reason," he remarked complacently.
It did. Before the thin veil of smoke had drifted away a man was seen on the Ann's stern, frantically calling up the Hawk in the semaphore code. A man on the privateer's bridge answered and then the other started to flap his flags about.
"Don't fire, stopping," read the message.
The foam under the stranger's stern was subsiding and an arrow of white steam shot into the air out of her exhaust-pipe. Already the distance between the two vessels was rapidly diminishing and soon they were within hailing distance. The skipper of the Ann was the first to avail himself of this, for, making a funnel of his hands, he demanded to know what the sanguinary blazes was meant by this hold-up.
"I demand to see your papers," bellowed Calamity.
The other appeared to execute a sort of complicated war-dance on the bridge, wildly waving his clenched fists above his head. No words came for a second or more, and then a burst of raw, pungent, and kaleidoscopic profanity hurtled across the intervening space, evoking by its wonderful variety the admiration even of the Hawk's crew.
"Blimey!" murmured Smith in an awed tone, "it's a treat to 'ear a bloke handle cuss-words like that."
Even Mr. Dykes, who rather prided himself on his mastery of the refreshing art of invective, was moved to wonder. Indeed, he made a mental note of several vituperative combinations whose force and originality impressed him.
When, at last, the master of the Ann paused, presumably for want of breath, the crew of the Hawk looked expectantly towards Calamity. Would he be able to rise to the occasion and wither his opponent by a scorching blast of even deadlier profanity, or would he humiliate them by using the commonplace swear-words of everyday life? He did neither.