Bang went both carronades, whisking up the surface of the sea on either beam into a sparkling foam, the bullets spanking away in flakes of fire, until they dropped ashore in the distance. The same low fiendish laugh was again heard from the boat nearest us; and as if they had only waited for this very foolish act of aggression on our part, to commence an attack, one of the boats pulled ahead, and then made right for our starboard bow. "Hillo!" said I, thinking the Rubicon was passed, and that our only chance now, after Tooraloo's absurd demonstration, was to put our best foot foremost--"Sheer off, whoever you are, or I will show you, my fine fellow, that we are not _playing_ with you, any how"--and picking up a musket, I gave them a moderate time to see if my threat would have any effect. Finding it had not, I took deliberate aim at the boat, and fired. A loud "Ah!" declared that the shot had told. This was followed by a deep groan, and some one exclaimed, in Spanish,--"Oh dios, soy muerto!" "Close and board him," shouted a loud and angry voice, high above several others, from the same boat--"Close and board him--cut their throats, if they resist." At this moment, as old Nick would have it, it fell entirely calm, and the boat began to approach rapidly; the other threatening our larboard quarter, so I thought our fate was sealed; but whether they were not quite satisfied of the kind of reception we might give them, they once more lay on their oars when close aboard of us. A clear and well-blown bugle from the boat where the man hud been hit, now awoke the sleeping echoes of the bay. Gradually they died away faint and more faint amongst the hills. All was still as the grave for a minute. "Ha, that is no reverberation, that is no echo; hark, it is answered by another bugle from the cove. Now we are in a remarkably beautiful mess," said I; "see--see." A rocket was here sent up by the other boat, and instantly answered by a steady red light from beyond the clump of cocoa-nut trees, through whose hair-like stems we could perceive the little Midge, with her tall lateen sail, stealing along in the crimson glare like some monstrous centipede of the ocean, and propelled by her sweeps, that flashed up the dark water all round her into blood-like foam, as if Old Nick's state barge had floated up red hot and hissing. A loud rushing noise at the same instant growled down on us from seaward, and one could perceive a squall, without being a pig, whitening the tops of the swell, even dark as it was. "Haul off," sung out the same voice, just as the breeze struck us,--"Sheer off, and let the scoundrel alone, and mind yourselves--he will be on the reef close to us here bodily in a moment."