"Oh dear! oh dear--see that poor little fellow, sir--ho! ho! ho!" rumbled Tobias Tooraloo, who all this time was lying flat on his stomach beside me, with his head a little raised, turtle-fashion. A poor boy belonging to the pirate schooner had been caught and cut off by the fire when aloft, and was now standing on the head of the mainmast with one arm round the topmast, and waving his cap in the most beseeching manner at us with the other hand--the rising smoke seemed to be stifling him, at least we could not hear his cries; at length the fire reached him, when after several abortive attempts to climb higher up, he became confused, and slung himself by a rope to the masthead, without seeming to know what he was about--he then gradually drooped, and drooped, the convulsive action of his head and limbs becoming more and more feeble; merciful Providence! the flames reach him--his hair is on fire, and his clothes; a last, strong, and sudden struggle for an instant, and then he hung motionless across the rope like a smirched and half-burned fleece. It never rains but it pours. "Hark! an earthquake!" and, as if a volcano had burst forth beneath our feet, at this instant of time the pirate schooner under the cliff blew up with an explosion that shook earth, air, and water--shooting the pieces of burning wreck in every direction, that hissed like meteors through the storm, and fell thickly all around us. The Midge, the Midge--she slides out of the smoke! See! she gains the offing. But the Avenger of Blood is behind; for the Spider had now cleared the harbour's mouth, and was in hot pursuit. The felucca with her sails--a whole constellation of shot-holes in them--double reefed, tearing and plunging through it; her sharp stem flashing up the water into smoke, in a vain attempt to weather the sandy point.--"Won't do, my boy; you cannot, carry to it as you will, clear the land as you are standing; you _must_ tack soon, unless you mean to _jump_ the little beauty over it." As I spoke, she hove about and stood across the schooner, exchanging broadsides gallantly. "Well done, little one." The Spider tacked also, and stood after her--a gun!--another!--both replied to by the felucca; the musketry peppering away all the while from each vessel; the tiny white puffs instantly obliterated by the foam-drift--and now neither fired a shot.