"Then we'd best be sturrin. How are we ridin?" The Gunner looked over the side. "Why, middlin deep, sir." "Then cut the boats away, and the anchors. Stave in the water-casks. Heave all spare shot and tackle overboard--we need nowt but the boards we stand on and the guns we fight; and make what sail you can on her.... I shall bear away for the shore. Don't mean bein took at my time o life." IV A breeze light as a lady's kiss smote the water. The topsails of the sloop began to fill and flutter. Deep in the water as a barge, she drew away from her floundering antagonist. As she did so, the privateer, as though loth to let her depart unsaluted, barked a sullen farewell. A roar of triumph from the _Coquette_, clearing now on the port-bow and a fainter shout from the frigate to starboard, told their own tale. The mizzen, struck twenty foot above the deck, came down with a crash. With it fell the red-cross flag, and the faces of the crew. "Hand me that striped petticut!" roared the Gunner, pointing to the tricolour lying entangled in the ruins of the privateer's main-top on the deck of the sloop. "I want to blow me nose." He leaped on to the bulwark, flag in hand; and staying himself by the shroud, blew his nose boisterously on the enemy's colours. The crew, busy clearing the wreckage of the mizzen, roared delight. The Gunner jumped down, and spread the flag over the old Commander's feet as he lay. "There's the first on em, sir. There's two more to follow." "Make it so," said the old man grimly. He was chewing a quid, and a battered cocked hat tilted over his eyes. V The Gunner marched away, eyes to his right, eyes to his left. And as he marched, he swept off his cocked hat. "Chaps," he called to the remnant of the crew gathered grimy about the after-hatch. "I thank my God for this booriful sight. Frenchman to port!" shooting his left arm. "Frenchman to starboard!" shooting his right. "Frenchman astarn!" with a backward toss. "And God A'mighty aloft. What more can a Christian ask?" A shot from the frigate splashed under the bows of the sloop, sluicing her deck. "There she spouts!" roared the Gunner, and clapping on his hat ran, kicking his heels behind him. "Come along, the baby-boys!--the last fight o the little _Tremendous_--and the best." III UNDER THE CLIFF CHAPTER XIV SUNDAY EVENING It was evening. The little _Tremendous_ lay under the cliff, pounding gently, gently, on a reef. Her back was broken, she had a heavy list to starboard, and her bulwark was awash. The mainmast had gone by the board. The quarterdeck carronades, loosed from their moorings, sprawled in the wash of the water, a dead man floating amongst them. The deck was a tangle of wreckage and bloody sails. From a splintered stump, more like a shaving-brush than a mast, the red-cross flag still flapped.