As for Spike and his people, we have already mentioned their efforts to get rid of the powder.  Shell after shell exploded, though none very near the brig, the ship working her guns as if in action.  At length the officers of the sloop-of-war detected a source of error in their aim, that is of very common occurrence in sea-gunnery.  Their shot had been thrown to ricochet, quartering a low, but very regular succession of little waves.  Each shot striking the water at an acute angle to its agitated surface, was deflected from a straight line, and described a regular curve toward the end of its career; or, it might be truer to say, an irregular curvature, for the deflection increased as the momentum of the missile diminished.

No sooner did the commanding officer of the sloop-of-war discover this fact, and it was easy to trace the course of the shots by the jets of water they cast into the air, and to see as well as to hear the explosions of the shells, than he ordered the guns pointed more to windward, as a means of counteracting the departure from the straight lines.  This expedient succeeded in part, the solid shot falling much nearer to the brig the moment the practice was resorted to.  No shell was fired for some little time after the new order was issued, and Spike and his people began to hope these terrific missiles had ceased their annoyance.  The men cheered, finding their voices for the first time since the danger had seemed so imminent, and Spike was heard animating them to their duty.  As for Mulford, he was on the coach-house deck, working the brig, the captain having confided to him that delicate duty, the highest proof he could furnish of confidence in his seamanship.  The handsome young mate had just made a half-board, in the neatest manner, shoving the brig by its means through a most difficult part of the passage, and had got her handsomely filled again on the same tack, looking right out into open water, by a channel through which she could now stand on a very easy bowline.  Everything seemed propitious, and the sloop-of-war’s solid shot began to drop into the water, a hundred yards short of the brig.  In this state of things one of the Paixhans belched forth its angry flame and sullen roar again.  There was no mistaking the gun.  Then came its mass of iron, a globe that would have weighed just sixty-eight pounds, had not sufficient metal been left out of its interior to leave a cavity to contain a single pound of powder.  Its course, as usual, was to be marked by its path along the sea, as it bounded, half a mile at a time, from wave to wave.  Spike saw by its undeviating course that this shell was booming terrifically toward his brig, and a cry to “look out for the shell,” caused the work to be suspended.  That shell struck the water for the last time, within two hundred yards of the brig, rose dark and menacing in its furious leap, but exploded at the next instant.  The fragments of the iron were scattered on each side, and ahead.  Of the last, three or four fell into the water so near the vessel as to cast their spray on her decks.