“My men, the schooner coming up on our weather quarter is a Portuguese pirate.  His character is known; he scuttles all the ships he boards, dishonors the women, and murders the crew.  We cracked on to get out of the narrows, and now we have shortened sail to fight this blackguard, and teach him not to molest a British ship.  I promise, in the Company’s name, twenty pounds prize money to every man before the mast if we beat him off or out manoeuvre him; thirty if we sink him; and forty if we tow him astern into a friendly port.  Eight guns are clear below, three on the weather side, five on the lee; for, if he knows his business, he will come up on the lee quarter:  if he doesn’t, that is no fault of yours nor mine.  The muskets are all loaded, the cutlasses ground like razors—­”

“Hurrah!”

“We have got women to defend—­”

“Hurrah!”

“A good ship under our feet, the God of justice overhead, British hearts in our bosoms, and British colors flying—­run ’em up!—­over our heads.”  (The ship’s colors flew up to the fore, and the Union Jack to the mizzen peak.) “Now lads, I mean to fight this ship while a plank of her (stamping on the deck) swims beneath my foot and—­WHAT DO YOU SAY?”

The reply was a fierce “hurrah!” from a hundred throats, so loud, so deep, so full of volume, it made the ship vibrate, and rang in the creeping-on pirate’s ears.  Fierce, but cunning, he saw mischief in those shortened sails, and that Union Jack, the terror of his tribe, rising to a British cheer; he lowered his mainsail, and crawled up on the weather quarter.  Arrived within a cable’s length, he double reefed his foresail to reduce his rate of sailing nearly to that of the ship; and the next moment a tongue of flame, and then a gash of smoke, issued from his lee bow, and the ball flew screaming like a seagull over the Agra’s mizzen top.  He then put his helm up, and fired his other bow-chaser, and sent the shot hissing and skipping on the water past the ship.  This prologue made the novices wince.  Bayliss wanted to reply with a carronade; but Dodd forbade him sternly, saying, “If we keep him aloof we are done for.”

The pirate drew nearer, and fired both guns in succession, hulled the Agra amidships, and sent an eighteen pound ball through her foresail.  Most of the faces were pale on the quarter-deck; it was very trying to be shot at, and hit, and make no return.  The next double discharge sent one shot smash through the stern cabin window, and splintered the bulwark with another, wounding a seaman slightly.

“LIE DOWN FORWARD!” shouted Dodd, through his trumpet.  “Bayliss, give him a shot.”

The carronade was fired with a tremendous report, but no visible effect.  The pirate crept nearer, steering in and out like a snake to avoid the carronades, and firing those two heavy guns alternately into the devoted ship.  He hulled the Agra now nearly every shot.