Up he came to the wind, and as he did so I saw a line of even breaks in the smooth black hull as he dropped his ports outboard. Then a puff of white smoke spurted from his side, and by the time the report of the gun reached our ears the convicts saw an English gunboat awaiting the explanation of the flying of that black flag. CHAPTER XXII. It would be hard to describe the disorder and terror aboard the _Arrow_ when the convicts realized their mistake. Benson roared and raved like a madman, and I expected him to vent his anger upon Brown and myself at any moment for having deceived him. But he evidently believed that I was as much astonished as himself at the identity of the stranger. Not being a sailor-man, he did not understand the language of spars and canvas, and had no reason to think that my eyes were any better than his own. At all events, even if he did intend to settle with me afterward, he now saw that his own life and the lives of his men depended on my being able to run the clipper clear of the English guns. The Black Roger was pulled down quicker than it takes to tell of it, and the American ensign run up in its place. But it was now too late to correct the error. The stranger luffed sharply, and soon her main and mizzen yards swung quickly and evenly with the man-o’-war’s precision. Then, letting go his bow-line, he came about and stood across our hawse; at the same time clapping on and sheeting home every rag possible below and aloft. We were a little to windward of his course now, but he was well ahead. I saw that when he tacked ship it would only be a question of minutes before we were right under his guns, unless we wore ship instantly and ran for it. Even then he would probably be close enough to knock the spars out of us before we could get out of range. He was evidently determined to find out the meaning of that joke about the flying of a black flag on the high seas. “Shall we turn and run, or try and pass him to the windward?” I asked Benson, hurriedly, intimating that the former was what I should choose, for I knew he would choose the opposite. “Head your course, d----n you! If you fail to clear him, you are a dead man,” he roared. The villain didn’t notice the smile I felt on my lips when he said this, or he would probably have finished with me then and there. He must have been much upset to have talked so wild, for he was usually cool enough. “Get the men below in the fore-hold,” he bawled to his man, Johnson, and that fellow bundled them down the fore-hatch like sheep, leaving only about a dozen to lounge about the deck as if they were sailors.