We thought that we had got off very easily; and we should, had not the first-lieutenant gone below and forgotten all about us. Hour after hour passed by: we had had no dinner: I was almost starved, and could scarcely have held on longer, when my eye fell on a sail to the southward. We were in the chops of the channel, with the wind from the northward. "Sail, O!" I shouted in a shrill tone. Fortunately Mr Lukyn was on deck, and when I had told him the direction in which I had seen the stranger, he called me down, it having probably occurred to him that I had been mast-headed rather longer than he intended. When I got on deck I went up to him, and, touching my hat, said, "Please, sir, Spellman is still at the mast-head." "Oh, is he? ah!" he answered, taking a turn. I guessed from this that he did not think I was much to blame. Still I was anxious to get poor Miss Susan out of this unpleasant predicament, for I knew he was almost dead with hunger. I had resolved to go up to Mr Lukyn to tell him so, when he hailed my late antagonist, and ordered him on deck. "You have to thank Mr Merry that you are not up still," observed the first-lieutenant, walking away. Meantime the helm had been put up, and sail made in chase of the stranger. All hands earnestly hoped that she might prove an enemy. A sharp look-out was kept on her. One thing soon became evident--that we must have been seen, and that she was not inclined to fly. "Now, Mr Merry, we'll show you what fighting is," observed Mr Johnson, the boatswain, as I stood near him on the forecastle. "You'll soon see round-shot, and langrage, and bullets rattling about us, thick as hail; and heads, and arms, and legs flying off like shuttle-cocks. A man's head is off his shoulders before he knows where he is. You'll not believe it, Mr Merry, perhaps; but it's a fact. I once belonged to a frigate, when we fell in with two of the enemy's line-of-battle ships, and brought them to action. One, for a short time, was on our starboard beam, and the other right aft; and we were exposed to a terrible cross and raking fire: it's only a wonder one of us remained alive, or that the ship didn't go down. It happened that two men were standing near me, looking the same way--athwart ships, you'll understand. The name of one was Bill Cox--the other, Tom Jay. Well, a round-shot came from our enemy astern, and took off the head of Bill Cox, who was on the larboard side; while at that identical moment a chain-shot from the ship abeam cut off Tom Jay's head, who was nearest the starboard side, so cleanly-- he happened to have a long neck--that it was jerked on to the body of Bill Cox, who, very naturally, putting up his hands to feel what had become, of his own head, kept it there so tightly that it stuck-- positively stuck; and, the surgeon afterwards plastering it thickly round, it grew as firmly as if it had always belonged to the body. The