The men responded to this with a loud, fierce hurrah, and turned to their guns again as cheerfully as though they were still certain of victory, although there was probably not a man there who did not by that time realise that the chances were all against the gallant little schooner ever reaching port again. The battle now raged with absolutely maniacal fury, the two schooners being by this time within biscuit-toss of each other, the pirate schooner lying on our weather-beam. The guns--so hot that they threatened to leap over the low rail into the sea--were loaded and fired as fast as the men could serve them, and, fighting at such close quarters, the carnage on both sides was frightful, the bulwarks of both vessels being practically shot away, and the guns and those who served them left absolutely defenceless. Our deck was like a shambles--there seemed to be more dead than living upon it--and the scuppers were all spouting blood, while the pirates were in scarcely better case, although it was now apparent that they had originally outnumbered us by something like three to one. How long the matter would have continued in this fashion it is impossible to say, but after we had thus been fighting almost hand to hand for about a quarter of an hour, during which the pirate schooner gradually drew ahead of us, a lucky shot from one of our guns brought down her mainmast, when she fell broad off, passed across our bows, raking us severely as she went, and then drove rapidly away to leeward, her people having apparently at length come to the conclusion that they had had all that they wanted in the way of fighting.