Then Fergusson, the captain of the six-pounder, fired. The little shell burst as it touched the water halfway across, and we heard the pirates yell again. Scroggs let out a dozen oaths, and told him to steady himself; and his next went nearer, and the next burst close alongside, and they didn't cheer that—they'd never seen shell burst before, I expect, and wondered what it was, and how we could fire so fast.
"Take your time," I shouted, and was so excited that I bit a great piece out of my lip. We fired again, and must have hit her, for a cloud of smoke came out of her bows, and a very different kind of yell came back, and we yelled too; but she'd loaded again by this time, luffed up, and gave us her port guns. There was a crash and a whistling sound, and out through the poop bounded a round shot, struck against a big chock of wood at the foot of the mainmast, and bounced overboard. It only missed one of the men at the tiller by a hair's breadth, and he let out a squeal, he was so surprised, and then got red and tried to pretend that it wasn't him. "They're only smooth bores," Scroggs shouted. "Who's squealing like a furry rabbit?" and Fergusson fired again—she wasn't four hundred yards away—and missed her. They started easing off rifles at us too, and the bullets went splattering through the sails and splashing into the water.
The Sally had been jumping about up to now—that was why Fergusson had kept on missing—but for just about two minutes she was quite steady. She almost seemed to know things were not quite all right, and Fergusson must have got off a dozen rounds, and nearly all of them hit. I was so excited, I yelled every time, and we could see smoke coming out and pieces of wood flying, and though she turned to give us her starboard broadside, she didn't fire them, and fell right off the wind, with her stern facing us. She wasn't three hundred yards off, and suddenly remembering the Maxim gun, I rushed aft; but before I could climb up the poop, Dicky turned out "trumps" and began firing. "Tut tut—tut tut," it went, and you could see a lane of bullet splashes; and as we lifted our stern they must have poured into her, and we heard shrieking, and could see the Chinamen throwing up their arms and falling, till the roll of the Sally took the sights off again.[#]
[#] A Maxim gun is an extremely difficult weapon to use, unless the gun platform is absolutely steady.
Then the signalman shouted, "They've had enough, sir!" and we saw that they daren't turn round again, and were easing off their sheets to run down wind.
You should have heard us cheer; and there wasn't any need to tell the men at the helm to "hard a-starboard", for they did it of their own accord, and we eased away our sheets and ran after her.
"I thought he'd be sorry for it, sir," said Scroggs coming up. "Look up there, sir; that does one real good."
I looked, and saw that we had the White Ensign flying from the mizzen peak. Dicky and I grinned with delight. We'd been told not to hoist it—they'd not even given us one—but there it was—grand!
"I did that, sir," the signalman said bashfully. "Stole it aboard the Vig., sir," and he grinned, and everybody grinned at everybody else, and looked to see what damage that round shot had done, just for curiosity.
My aunt! we did just bubble through the water, half burying our bows; the breeze must have freshened up without our noticing it. The pirate was digging out too, and had got a good start, and it wasn't any use firing at her, because we had a funny corkscrew rolling motion, and couldn't be certain of hitting anything. We only had two hundred rounds of shell to begin with, so I didn't dare to waste them, and waited till we could draw up closer and make certain of hitting. She was making straight for the island, and at one time we thought that we must try and disable her before she ran herself ashore. Dicky and I began to talk about capturing her. We were little fools, as it turned out.