After that solemn silence came a storm of cries and curses, as their seamen went to work to fit the yard and raise the sail while their fighting men seized their matchlocks and trained the guns. They were well commanded by an heroic able villain. Astern the consort thundered; but the _Agra's_ response was a dead silence more awful than broadsides. For then was seen with what majesty the enduring Anglo-Saxon fights. One of that indomitable race on the gangway, one at the foremast, two at the wheel, conned and steered the great ship down on a hundred matchlocks and a grinning broadside, just as they would have conned and steered her into a British harbour. “Starboard!” said Dodd, in a deep calm voice, with a motion of his hand. “Starboard it is.” The pirate wriggled ahead a little. The man forward made a silent signal to Dodd. “Port!” said Dodd quietly. “Port it is.” But at this critical moment the pirate astern sent a mischievous shot and knocked one of the men to atoms at the helm. Dodd waved his hand without a word, and another man rose from the deck, and took his place in silence, and laid his unshaking hand on the wheel stained with that man's warm blood whose place he took. The high ship was now scarce sixty yards distant; _she seemed to know:_ she reared her lofty figure-head with great awful shoots into the air. But now the panting pirates got their new foresail hoisted with a joyful shout: it drew, the schooner gathered way, and their furious consort close on the _Agra's_ heels just then scourged her deck with grape. “Port!” said Dodd calmly. “Port it is.”