He hailed the mizen top: "Can you two hinder them from firing that gun?"
"I rather think we can," said Fullalove; "eh, Colonel?" and he tapped his
long rifle.
The ship no sooner crossed the schooner's bows* than a Malay ran forward
with a linstock. Pop went the colonel's ready carbine, and the Malay fell
over dead, and the linstock flew out of his hand. A tall Portuguese, with
a movement of rage, snatched it up and darted to the gun: the Yankee
rifle cracked, but a moment too late. Bang! went the pirate's bow-chaser,
and crashed into the _Agra's_ side, and passed nearly through her.
*Being disabled, the schooner's head had come round to windward, though
she was drifting to leeward.
"Ye missed him! Ye missed him!" cried the rival theorist joyfully. He was
mistaken: the smoke cleared, and there was the pirate captain leaning
wounded against the mainmast with a Yankee bullet in his shoulder, and
his crew uttering yells of dismay and vengeance. They jumped, and raged,
and brandished their knives, and made horrid gesticulations of revenge;
and the white eyeballs of the Malays and Papuans glittered fiendishly;
and the wounded captain raised his sound arm and had a signal hoisted to
his consort, and she bore up in chase, and jamming her fore lateen flat
as a board, lay far nearer the wind than the _Agra_ could, and sailed
three feet to her two besides.
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