"Lay aft, all hands!" was the order he gave. "Marcy, stand by to watch the buoys in the Inlet. Morgan, go to the wheel and hold her just as she is. Don't luff so much as a hair's breadth. We'll run them Yankees down. It's our only chance." "And a very slim one it is," thought Marcy, as he took the glass from the mate's hand and directed it toward the point where he thought the entrance of the Inlet ought to be. "The cruiser to which this boat belongs can't be far away, and she will come up the minute she hears the roar of the howitzer." "Heave to, or we'll sink you!" came the order, in louder and more emphatic tones. "Starboard a spoke or two. Steady at that," said Beardsley, turning about and addressing the man who had been stationed in the waist to pass his commands. "Ten to one they'll miss us, but all the same I wish I knew how heavy them guns of their'n is." "They have but one," replied Marcy, wondering at the captain's coolness. "Can't you see it there in the bow?" "Well, if it's a twenty-four pounder, like them old ones of our'n, and they hit us at the water-line, they'll tear a hole in us as big as a barn door." All this while the schooner had been bearing swiftly down upon the launch, and when the officer in command of her began to see through Beardsley's little plan, he at once proceeded to set in motion one of his own that was calculated to defeat it. His howitzer was loaded with a five-second shrapnel, and this he fired at the schooner at a point-blank range of less than a hundred yards. He couldn't miss entirely at that short distance, but the missile flew too high to hull the blockade-runner. It struck the flying jib-boom, breaking it short off and rendering that sail useless, glanced and splintered the rail close by the spot where the captain and his pilot were standing, went shrieking off over the water, and finally exploding an eighth of a mile astern. The skipper and Marcy were both prostrated by a splinter six feet long and four inches thick that was torn from the rail; but they scrambled to their feet again almost as soon as they touched the deck, and when they looked ahead, fully expecting to find the launch under the schooner's fore-foot and on the point of being run down, they saw an astonishing as well as a most discouraging sight. The boat was farther away than she was before, and her whole length could be seen now, for not only was she broadside on, but the darkness above and around her, which had hitherto rendered her shape and size somewhat indistinct, was lighted up by a bright glare that shot up from somewhere amidships, and the sound of escaping steam could be plainly heard. [Illustration: CAPTAIN BEARDSLEY SURPRISED.]