"I cannot endure this defiance," said I to Cromby; "let him sink his casket and be damned to him! I have been a King's officer, and will never submit to the insults of a blackguard scoundrelly pirate. Up with the mainsail, my lads, haul away, and at him;" and as I spoke I whipped out my pistol, and, sighting him, fired. That I miss't him was none too strange, seeing how both of us were tumbling about and rolling in the water, no more than that he miss't me, as, pulling two pistols out of his sash, he fired, one in each hand. Then, when he saw our mainsail go up, he made as though he would cut the cord to which hung the casket--only a moment afterwards he altered his mind, and bellowing of an order, which we could very well hear, since now the waves and winds had abated, soon had his own sail up; and in a moment his ship had caught the wind and was away. That we should ever have catched them sufficient to come alongside and board, I cannot think, even under the best of circumstances, but this chance was not to be ours, for our ropes had fouled, so that they could not be run, and ere we could get them disentangled, the _Etoyle_ was well off from us. But since again, with the coming of fairer weather, the wind had northed, we could very well see they were running for the south. They _were_ bound for the islands! But at last we got our ropes free, and away we went too. The morn was breaking now and the waves abating, so that, though still we tossed up and down, we could see their horrid black silk flag a-flying on the mizen peak whenever we rose to the crest; and, with the white spume of the water dashed in our faces, and reckless now of what might happen so that we did but keep them in sight, we set all our galliot's sails--main, mizen, and gaff main sail--and tore after them. "We will follow them, my lads," I said now, with my blood up to boiling heat; "we will follow them to the death! There shall be but one crew left alive to tell this story." And as I spake my men gave three hearty cheers. So, having got thus far in my account, I will now rest again for a while. CHAPTER XX. A FIGHT. Now I go on to narrate the tracking of those thieves and pirates, and of what thereby followed. By midday we were off the islands, with the chase well ahead of us--yet not so far neither as she had been, since we had sailed faster than she this time, in consequence, as we soon learnt, of their having snapped their foremast--and with Negada, or the Drowned Island, so called because 'tis frequently submerged by the tide, lying not a league away. "I have been here before," says Cromby, "and I doubt their getting ashore. All around lie sand-banks and shoals that require careful navigation. If they run in here we shall fight 'em when we are both aground." "Then I do pray they will," says I. "It will be best to land, and no chance of escape for either. 'Twill suit us, my lads."