"
"Ay, _if,_" groaned Sharpe.
Dodd mused again.
"About ship!" said he softly, like an absent man.
"Ay, ay, sir!"
"Steer due north!" said he, still like one whose mind was elsewhere.
While the ship was coming about, he gave minute orders to the mates and
the gunner, to ensure co-operation in the delicate and dangerous
manoeuvres that were sure to be at hand.
The wind was W.N.W: lie was standing north; one pirate lay on his lee
beam stopping a leak between wind and water, and hacking the deck clear
of his broken mast and yards. The other, fresh, and thirsting for the
easy prey, came up to weather on him and hang on his quarter, pirate
fashion.
When they were distant about a cable's length, the fresh pirate, to meet
the ship's change of tactics, changed his own, luffed up, and gave the
ship a broadside, well aimed but not destructive, the guns being loaded
with ball.
Dodd, instead of replying immediately, put his helm hard up and ran under
the pirate's stern, while he was jammed up in the wind, and with his five
eighteen pounders raked him fore and aft, then paying off, gave him three
carronades crammed with grape and canister.
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