"Who are you? Pirates?" said a shaking voice at my side. I looked around. There stood the old sailor with his knees half bent, as if they refused to straighten.
"We're Yankee privateersmen," I said, grinning at him.
"Much the same thing," he muttered—"pirates! What are you going to do with us?"
"Treat you kindly, if you make no noise," I answered, rather amused than otherwise.
This appeared to relieve the old man greatly. The carpenter now came aft.
"I've bucked and gagged the men I found on deck," he said. "You don't want to heave them overboard, do you?" he added, chuckling.
"No!" I answered, quickly.
I had no time to find out whether the man was joking or not in asking this, for a flash of red fire tore out against the darkness less than a mile astern of us. Then a crash reached our ears. Some more flashes and reports in criss-cross, and then a burst of flame so bright that I could make out the outlines of a vessel from her lower yards to the water!
"By the great sharks, Mr. Hurdiss," cried the carpenter, "old Smiler has run afoul of a frigate, and no less! That's the end of him."
As we learned afterwards, that broadside was the end of poor Captain Gorham, and the tight little Yankee also. But we soon had affairs of our own to look after, and I myself had my hands full.