The _Yan_, whose name was now discernible across her stern, was much faster than Kiron had led me to believe; but the _Sofal_ was exceptionally speedy, and it soon became obvious to all that the other ship could not escape her. Slowly we regained the distance that we had lost in the first, unexpected spurt of the _Yan_; slowly but surely we were closing up on her. Then the captain of the _Yan_ did just what I should have done had I been in his place; he kept the _Sofal_ always directly astern of him and opened fire on us with his after tower gun and with a gun similarly placed in the stern on the lower deck. The maneuver was tactically faultless, since it greatly reduced the number of guns that we could bring into play without changing our course, and was the only one that might offer him any hope of escape. There was something eery in the sound of that first heavy Amtorian gun that I had heard. I saw nothing, neither smoke nor flame; there was only a loud staccato roar more reminiscent of machine gun fire than of any other sound. At first there was no other effect; then I saw a piece of our starboard rail go and two of my men fall to the deck. By this time our bow gun was in action. We were in the swell of the _Yan_’s wake, which made accurate firing difficult. The two ships were racing ahead at full speed; the prow of the _Sofal_ was throwing white water and spume far to either side; the sea in the wake of the _Yan_ was boiling, and a heavy swell that we were quartering kept the ships rolling. The thrill of the chase and of battle was in our blood, and above all was the venomous rattle of the big guns. I ran to the bow to direct the fire of the gun there, and a moment later we had the satisfaction of seeing the crew of one of the _Yan_’s guns crumple to the deck man by man, as our gunner got his sights on them and mowed them down. The _Sofal_ was gaining rapidly upon the _Yan_, and our guns were concentrating on the tower gun and the tower of the enemy. The ongyan had long since disappeared from the upper deck, having doubtlessly sought safety in a less exposed part of the ship, and in fact there were only two men left alive upon the tower deck where he had stood beside the captain; these were two of the crew of the gun that was giving us most trouble.