“Now’s your time, my men!” I sang out, as I sprung forward, luffing up at the same time, so as to get our broadside to bear on her.
The foremost gun was the first fired, followed by the others in succession. Nothing daunted, the fellow was holding on, his jib-halyards alone having been carried away, and the jib was slashing about under his bows.
“By Jupiter! he’ll weather on us now, if we don’t take care and slip away in the wind’s eye,” I exclaimed.
The captain thought so too; and again ordering me to fire right at her hull, a yaw was given, and gun after gun as they were brought to bear was poured into the slaver. The effects of the shot made her fly up into the wind. Several of her braces and halyards were cut away, and, she now nearly a wreck, we in a few minutes were close aboard her. “Hands, shorten sail.” In three seconds Her Majesty’s brig was under topsails, hove-to alongside her prize.
“Mr Rawson,” said the captain, addressing me, “there will be some difficulty in boarding that vessel, and I wish that you would go in the gig and take possession of her. She is our first prize, remember, and it would not do to let her slip through our fingers.”
“Ay, ay, sir. Gig’s crew away, then?” I sung out, as I stepped to the binnacle to take the bearings of the schooner from us. Luckily I did so, for we could only then just distinguish her, and a dark mass of clouds driving across the moon shut her out completely from our sight. “Bear a hand there, and lower away the gig!” I sung out, for I was anxious to shove off before the brig entirely lost her way through the water.
It was not particularly pleasant work in the heavy sea there was running having to grope about in the dark for a craft manned probably by desperadoes, who would be too happy to cut our throats if they had the opportunity. I had a brace of pistols, and a few cutlasses had been thrown into the boat. Thus prepared we cast off, and the men bent bravely to their oars as the boat topped the heavy seas over which we had to pass. The brig showed a light for us to steer by, but the schooner was in no way so civil. On we pulled, however, in the hope of hitting her, but though we had gone over fully the distance I calculated she must have been from us, yet nothing of her could we see. I was almost in despair, and as while looking for her I could not attend carefully to the boat’s steering we shipped two or three heavy seas, which almost swamped her, and we had to bale them out as fast as we could. For some time the men lay on their oars, just keeping the boat’s head to the seas while we looked round for the chase.
“She has gone! The rascal took the opportunity of the last shower to sneak off,” I thought. “Pleasant. But patience; c’est la fortune de la guerre.”
Disconsolate enough I was steering back for the faint glimmer of light which I believed proceeded
