destroy her. Add to this the failing ammunition,
and the thinned crew!

Dodd cast his eyes all round the horizon for
help.

The sea was blank.

The bright sun was hidden now; drops of rain
fell, and the wind was beginning to sing; and the
sea to rise a little.

"Gentlemen," said he, "let us kneel down and
pray for wisdom, in this sore strait."

He and his officers kneeled on the quarter
deck. When they rose, Dodd stood rapt about
a minute; his great thoughtful eye saw no more
the enemy, the sea, nor anything external; it
was turned inward. His officers looked at him
in silence.

"Sharpe," said he, at last, "there must be a
way out of them with such a breeze as this is
now; if we could but see it."

"Ay, if," groaned Sharpe.

Dodd mused again.

"About ship!" said he, softly, like an absent
man.

"Ay, ay, sir."

"Steer due north!" said he, still like one
whose mind was elsewhere.

While the ship was coming about, he gave
minute orders to the mates and the gunner, to
ensure co-operation in the first part of a delicate
and dangerous manœuvre he had resolved to try.

The wind was W.N.W.: he was standing
north: one pirate lay on his lee beam stopping
a leak between wind and water, and hacking
the deck clear of his broken masts and yards.
The other fresh, and thirsting for the easy prey,
came up from the N.E., to weather on him and
hang on his quarter, pirate fashion.

When they were distant about a cable's length,
the fresh pirate, to meet the ship's change of
tactics, changed his own, put his helm up a
little, and gave the ship a broadside, well aimed
but not destructive, the guns being loaded with
ball.

Dodd, instead of replying, as was expected,
took advantage of the smoke and put his ship
before the wind. By this unexpected stroke the
vessels engaged ran swiftly at right angles towards one
point, and the pirate saw himself menaced with
two serious perils; a collision, which might send
him to the bottom of the sea in a minute, or a
broadside delivered at pistol-shot distance, and
with no possibility of his making a return. He
must either put his helm up or down. He chose
the bolder course, put his helm hard a lee, and
stood ready to give broadside for broadside. But
ere he could bring his lee guns to bear, he must
offer his bow for one moment to the ship's broadside;
and in that moment, which Dodd had
provided for, Monk and his mates raked him fore
and aft at short distance with all the five guns
that were clear on that side; the carronades
followed and mowed him slantwise with grape
and canister; the almost simultaneous discharge
of eight guns made the ship tremble, and
enveloped her in thick smoke; loud shrieks and
groans were heard from the schooner: the
smoke cleared; the pirate's mainsail hung on
deck, his jib-boom was cut off like a carrot
and the sail struggling; his foresail looked lace,
lanes of dead and wounded lay still or writhing
on his deck, and his lee scuppers ran blood into
the sea.

The ship rushed down the wind, leaving the
schooner staggered and all abroad. But not for
long; the pirate fired his broadside after all, at
the now flying Agra, split one of the carronades
in two, and killed a Lascar, and made a hole in
the foresail; this done, he hoisted his mainsail
again in a trice, sent his wounded below, flung
his dead overboard, to the horror of their foes,
and came after the flying ship, yawing and firing
his bow chasers. The ship was silent. She had
no shot to throw away. Not only did she take
these blows like a coward, but all signs of life
disappeared on her, except two men at the
wheel, and the captain on the main gangway.

Dodd had ordered the crew out of the rigging,
armed them with cutlasses, and laid them flat on
the forecastle. He also compelled Kenealy and
Fullalove to come down out of harm's way, no
wiser on the smooth bore question than they
went up.

The great patient ship ran environed by her
foes; one destroyer right in her course, another
in her wake, following her with yells of vengeance,
and pounding away at her—but no reply.

Suddenly the yells of the pirates on both sides
ceased, and there was a moment of dead silence
on the sea.

Yet nothing fresh had happened.

Yes, this had happened: the pirates to windward,
and the pirates to leeward, of the Agra, had
found out, at one and the same moment, that the
merchant captain they had lashed, and bullied,
and tortured, was a patient but tremendous man.
It was not only to rake the fresh schooner he
had put his ship before the wind, but also by a
double, daring, masterstroke to hurl his monster
ship bodily on the other. Without a foresail she
could never get out of his way. Her crew had
stopped the leak, and cut away and unshipped
the broken foremast, and were stepping a new
one, when they saw the huge ship bearing down
in full sail. Nothing easier than to slip out of
her way could they get the foresail to draw;
but the time was short, the deadly intention
manifest, the coming destruction swift.

After that solemn silence came a storm of cries
and curses, as their seamen went to work to fit
the yard and raise the sail; while their fighting
men seized their matchlocks and trained the
guns. They were well commanded by an heroic
able villain. Astern the consort thundered; but
the Agra's response was a dead silence more
awful than broadsides.

For then was seen with what majesty the
enduring Anglo-Saxon fights.

One of that indomitable race on the gangway,
one at the foremast, two at the wheel, conned and
steered the great ship down on a hundred matchlocks