The strange sail had by this time been made out to be a three-decker, and so rapidly did he gain on us that we now counted upwards of forty guns on a side. As the breeze freshened, moreover, his velocity increased. Throwing out fold after fold of canvass, until a pyramid of snowy duck rose towering above his decks, and the water rolled in cataracts of foam beneath his gigantic bows, he seemed determined to overtake us before the breeze which he brought with him could by any possibility subside.
Meanwhile we made every effort to escape; but without success. The very freshness of the breeze, owing to our comparatively light canvass, was in favor of our adversary. In vain we threw out every sail; in vain the ropes were hauled as taut as they could be drawn; in vain as a last resort, our sails were wet down even to the trucks—every endeavor to increase our speed only appeared to weary out our crew, without altering the relative velocity of the two ships.
“By my faith! but yonder fellow sails well,” said the skipper, “I little thought anything that carried canvass could come up in this style, hand over hand, to the saucy Fire-Fly. What think you, Mr. Stevens?”
The lieutenant shook his head, and answered,
“I fear, sir, we shall have to choose betwixt a surrender or a hopeless fight.”
“Ay, ay—that’s true,” said the skipper, abstractedly, “but he’s not overhauled us yet, and there’s many a slip betwixt the cup and the lip, you know.”
“Pray God it may be so now!”
By this time the man-of-war had come up within long cannon-shot of the schooner, and just as the lieutenant finished his ejaculation, the stranger luffed beautifully up a point or two, and the next minute a sheet of flame streamed out from one of her bow-guns, and a shot whistling past us aloft, plunged headlong into the sea to leeward. At the same moment a roll of bunting shot up to the gaff of the stranger, and slowly unrolling blew out upon the air.
“The English cross—by all that’s holy!” ejaculated the skipper.
There was a dead silence of more than a minute. Each one looked into his neighbor’s face. The captain, with a compressed lip and a disturbed brow, gazed, without speaking, on the man-of-war; while the discipline of the service, as well as the sudden knowledge of our peril, were sufficient to restrain the officers from conversation. Directly, however, the Englishman luffed again; another sheet of fire blazed from her bows; and a ball, sent this time with more certainty of aim, went through our fore topsail just above the foot.