Nor was the vessel at all free from danger.  On the contrary, she ran very serious risk of being destroyed, and in some degree, in the very manner apprehended.  Perceiving that Spike was luffing up through one of the passages nearest the reef, which would carry him clear of the group, a long distance to windward of the point where he could only effect the same object, the commander of the sloop-of-war opened his fire in good earnest, hoping to shoot away something material on board the Swash, before she could get beyond the reach of his shot.  The courses steered by the two vessels, just at that moment, favoured such an attempt, though they made it necessarily very short-lived.  While the Swash was near the wind, the sloop-of-war was obliged to run off to avoid islets ahead of her, a circumstance which, while it brought the brig square with the ship’s broadside, compelled the latter to steer on a diverging line to the course of her chase.  It was in consequence of these facts, that the sloop-of-war now opened in earnest, and was soon canopied in the smoke of her own fire.

Great and important changes, as has been already mentioned, have been made in the armaments of all the smaller cruisers within the last few years.  Half a generation since, a ship of the rate—­we do not say of the size—­of the vessel which was in chase of Spike and his craft, would not have had it in her power to molest an enemy at the distance these two vessels were now apart.  But recent improvements have made ships of this nominal force formidable at nearly a league’s distance; more especially by means of their Paixhans and their shells.

For some little time the range carried the shot directly over the islet of the tent; Jack Tier and Rose, both of whom were watching all that passed with intense interest, standing in the open air the whole time, seemingly with no concern for themselves, so absorbed was each, notwithstanding all that had passed, in the safety of the brig.  As for Rose, she thought only of Harry Mulford, and of the danger he was in by those fearful explosions of the shells.  Her quick intellect comprehended the peculiar nature of the risk that was incurred by having the flour-barrels on deck, and she could not but see the manner in which Spike and his men were tumbling them into the water, as the quickest manner of getting rid of them.  After what had just passed between Jack Tier and his commander, it might not be so easy to account for his manifest, nay, intense interest in the escape of the Swash.  This was apparent by his troubled countenance, by his exclamations, and occasionally by his openly expressed wishes for her safety.  Perhaps it was no more than the interest the seaman is so apt to feel in the craft in which he has so long sailed, and which to him has been a home, and of which Mulford exhibited so much, in his struggles between feeling and conscience—­between a true and a false duty.