The white Britons,
drunk with battle now, naked to the waist, grimed with powder, and
spotted like leopards with blood, their and their mates', replied with
loud undaunted cheers and a deadly hail of grape from the quarter-deck;
while the master-gunner and his mates, loading with a rapidity the mixed
races opposed could not rival, hulled the schooner well between wind and
water, and then fired chain-shot at her masts, as ordered, and began to
play the mischief with her shrouds and rigging. Meantime, Fullalove and
Kenealy, aided by Vespasian, who loaded, were quietly butchering the
pirate crew two a minute, and hoped to settle the question they were
fighting for: smooth bore _v._ rifle; but unluckily neither fired once
without killing; so "there was nothing proven."
The pirate, bold as he was, got sick of fair fighting first. He hoisted
his mainsail and threw rapidly ahead, with a slight bearing to windward,
and dismounted a carronade and stove in the ship's quarter-boat, by way
of a parting kick.
The men hurled a contemptuous cheer after him; they thought they had
beaten him off.
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