“I’ll stay where I am, lad, till you an’ the others insist that you can hold the course better than I’m doin’. As for safety, I reckon there’s precious little choice of stations.” “Your upper lip is stiff,” Abe said approvingly, and I smiled ever so slightly because he was thus deceived. The Britishers were not afraid of burning powder, for within the next half-minute another solid shot came hurtling across the water; but this time the gunner was wild--we neither saw nor heard it. In order to keep her guns bearing on us, the brig had been forced to haul around on a course parallel with ours, and thus we understood that it was her purpose to sink us offhand, rather than spend time in chase. “You are gainin’ on her a bit!” Seth Hartley cried, evidently thinking I needed heartening. “If her gunners will slip up on their aim with the next dozen shots, we’re like to come off scot free.” He had no more than spoken when we saw another flash, and a second later the gallant little sloop heeled as if she had struck a reef, while the white splinters flew in a shower from her bow. I believed she was wounded to the death, and can well fancy that there was a note of sadness in my voice as I cried sharply: “Get forward there an’ see what mischief has been done. Sam, you’d best stand by the skiff in case we need it suddenly!” Seth and Abraham obeyed the command even as I spoke, and at the same instant a wail of fear came up from the cuddy: “Don’t leave me here to be killed! Don’t leave me. I’ll do whatsoever you say if you won’t leave me!” “Don’t fret yourself about that,” Sam shouted much as if matters were moving exactly to his taste. “We’re not minded to lose you again, Luther; but if your very particular friends send their old iron around so carelessly, there’s a good show of our bein’ together for all time to come.” “There’s nothin’ wrong here!” Abe cried from the bow, and it seemed as if only then did I begin to breathe. “We’ve lost the bitts, and some of the bow rail; but nothin’ to count!” Another shot on the heels of the one that had come so near the target; but it buried itself in the water fifty feet astern, and Seth Hartley shouted as if he no longer had any fear as to the final result: “Keep her to the course, lad. The Englishmen are growin’ nervous, an’ we need only hold out five minutes longer to be beyond range, for we’re gainin’ hand over hand.” The matter of keeping her to the course did not worry me; but I questioned whether the little craft would hold together five minutes longer. It needed only that one shot should strike us fairly to put an end to the chase in short order, and it seemed to me absolutely impossible the gunners could send half a dozen more without hitting the mark.