Although many curious eyes were watching this beautiful sight from the cliffs, there was too little of novelty in the exhibition to attract a single look of the crew of the schooner from the more important examination of the effect of the shot on their enemy. Barnstable sprang lightly on a gun, and watched the instant when the ball would strike, with keen interest, while long Tom threw himself aside from the line of the smoke with a similar intention; holding one of his long arms extended toward his namesake, with a finger on the vent, and supporting his frame by placing the hand of the other on the deck, as his eyes glanced through an opposite port-hole, in an attitude that most men might have despaired of imitating with success. “There go the chips!” cried Barnstable. “Bravo! Master Coffin, you never planted iron in the ribs of an English man with more judgment. Let him have another piece of it; and if he like the sport, we'll play a game of long bowls with him!” “Ay, ay, sir,” returned the cockswain, who, the instant he witnessed the effects of his shot, had returned to superintend the reloading of his gun; “if he holds on half an hour longer, I'll dub him down to our own size, when we can close, and make an even fight of it.” The drum of the Englishman was now, for the first time, heard rattling across the waters, and echoing the call to quarters, that had already proceeded from the Ariel. “Ay! you have sent him to his guns!” said Barnstable; “we shall now hear more of it; wake him up, Tom--wake him up.” “We shall start him on end, or put him to sleep altogether, shortly,” said the deliberate cockswain, who never allowed himself to be at all hurried, even by his commander. My shot are pretty much like a shoal of porpoises, and commonly sail in each other's wake. Stand by--heave her breech forward--so; get out of that, you damned young reprobate, and let my harpoon alone!” “What are you at, there, Master Coffin?” cried Barnstable; “are you tongue-tied?” “Here's one of the boys skylarking with my harpoon in the lee-scuppers, and by and by, when I shall want it most, there'll be a no-man's land to hunt for it in.” “Never mind the boy, Tom; send him aft here to me, and I'll polish his behavior; give the Englishman some more iron.” “I want the little villain to pass up my cartridges,” returned the angry old seaman; “but if you'll be so good, sir, as to hit him a crack or two, now and then, as he goes by you to the magazine, the monkey will learn his manners, and the schooner's work will be all the better done for it. A young herring-faced monkey! to meddle with a tool ye don't know the use of. If your parents had spent more of their money on your edication, and less on your outfit, you'd ha' been a gentleman to what ye are now.” “Hurrah! Tom, hurrah!” cried Barnstable, a little impatiently; “is your namesake never to open his throat again!”