We ran like this, firing into her as hard as we could—we on one side, "No. 2" on the other—and now our shooting began to take effect. The pirate began to slacken speed; we could see wide rents in her side and water pouring in. "Keep at it, men, for another minute," shouted Mr. Parker, and we poured in a regular stream of shells. One or two of these just did the trick (we never found out which fired it, but Jones claimed it for his 12-pounder, and "No. 2" was equally certain it was her shot), for suddenly a great volume of smoke and steam rushed up from her deck, her mast and foremost funnel went over the side, and her deck opened in a great gap, as if she had broken her back. We gave a great cheer, and heard "No. 2" cheering wildly too. It was just about time, for the cruiser was now not two thousand yards off, and began blazing at us, apparently not caring whether she hit her own destroyer or not, now that she could not possibly get away. One shell fell into the water just between us, and went ricocheting away with a loud hissing noise. We had to leave her, and quickly too; so wheeling round we steered to pick up the _Laird_ again, which now was out of sight, firing a parting broadside, which made Mr. Parker sing out, "Cease firing, men, cease firing; she’s had enough, she’s sinking!" Didn’t the cruiser give it to us then! Big shot came pitching all round us with the noise of an express train, and little ones went past with a "flipping" sound. How it was we were never hit I cannot imagine to this day, for she was really making splendid practice in that first five minutes, and I don’t think I have ever felt in so much of a funk since, for, you see, if but one of those big shells had come aboard, it would have been death for everybody, and we should have sunk before we could have said "Jack Robinson". But our great speed soon took us out of accurate range, and then we were practically safe, except from any chance shot. The cruiser must have seen the _Laird_ before we did, for she soon gave up the chase and left us alone; and mighty glad we were, too, I can tell you, and went to "clean guns" and cleared up the deck. It was littered with empty cartridge cases, in spite of many which had rolled or been thrown overboard. The two wounded men had been attended to long before this, but there was nothing very serious wrong with them, just flesh wounds from small bits of shell. Looking back we saw that the other two destroyers had returned, and were standing by the one we had crippled; but they could not save her, for suddenly she turned turtle and disappeared, our men breaking out into cheers again. "I hope they managed to save that big chap," Tommy said, and Mr. Parker, hearing him, added, "I hope so too; I should jolly well like to shake hands with that man."