A scuffle immediately followed, and several random shots were exchanged. In a very short space, the Americans were victorious, having secured the five British officers. Young Joinly had thrown the captain upon the floor, where he held him fast till the rest were mastered. Finding it idle to resist, the British officers submitted to their fate, and were permitted to rise. The captain was then commanded to prepare immediately to depart, and the rest were tied, hand and foot, and left separate from each other in the different rooms of the house.
Having secured the chief object of their expedition, Joinly and his party made a hasty retreat, knowing that the alarm would soon be communicated to the troops stationed in the vicinity. Taking a course which led around the head of the bay, they made their way to the sheltered spot where their little sloop was anchored. The gale was still raging; but, seeming not to heed it, they released her from her moorings and put her before the wind.
Keeping in to the land, they were somewhat sheltered from the gale; but still the little vessel seemed to dance like a feather upon the wave. The morning had now dawned, but the thick haze rendered it impossible to see at any great distance. As they were proceeding in their course, they saw a large vessel, scudding, like themselves, before the wind. It was not long before they also discovered that it was the Tiger, which they had supposed blown to atoms, and apparently in pursuit of them.
As soon as this idea entered the mind of young Joinly, he stretched a little more out from the land and hoisted an additional sail. “We will give him a chase,” said he, “and we will see which shall have the best of it. Hurl-gate is five miles ahead, and we will try which shall get through it first.”
The men on board the boat had now become so accustomed to the authority of young Joinly, that they offered no opposition to this wild and perilous suggestion; but, taking their several stations, each man well performed his part, and the sloop, shivering in every plank and seeming to partake of the excitement, skimmed like a sea-gull over the water. The two vessels proceeded steadily for some time, but it was at last obvious that the Tiger was gaining upon the sloop.
The captain, who had watched the whole of the proceeding with intense interest, now spoke and said to Joinly, “Young man, you had better give it up; you’ll soon be riddled with her shot.”
“Look yonder,” said Joinly, in reply, pointing forward; “do you see the water boiling in yonder whirlpool like a pot?”
“I do, I do!” said the captain, his countenance assuming a look of the utmost anxiety.
“That is Hurl-gate!” said the youth. “We shall pass it in safety; but, if the Tiger proceed five hundred fathoms more, her escape is impossible, and her doom certain.”
A general silence now prevailed, during which the sloop passed safely through the tumbling eddies of the whirlpool. The frigate continued on her track, and in a few moments she struck upon the rocks. This circumstance was immediately noticed on board the sloop, and a general shout of triumph rang through the air.