But Bulger's yarn was intercepted. At that moment the boatswain piped, "All hands to quarters!" In a surprisingly short time all timber was cleared away, the galley fire was extinguished, the yards slung, the deck strewn with wet sand, and sails, booms, and boats liberally drenched with water. The gun captains, each with his crew, cast loose the lashings of their weapons and struck open the ports. The tompions was taken out; the sponge, rammer, crows and handspikes placed in readiness, and all awaited eagerly the word for the action to begin.

"'Tis about time we opened our mouths at 'em," said Bulger. "The next bolus they send us as like as not will bring the spars a-rattlin' about our ears. To be sure it goes against my stummick to fire on old messmates; but it en't in Englishmen to hold their noses and swallow pills o' that there size. We'll load up all ready, mateys."

He stripped to the waist, and tied a handkerchief over his ears. Desmond and the men followed his example. Then one of them sponged the bore, another inserted the cartridge, containing three pounds of powder, by means of a long ladle, a third shoved in a wad of rope yarn. This having been driven home by the rammer, the round shot was inserted, and covered like the cartridge with a wad. Then Bulger took his priming iron, an instrument like a long thin corkscrew, and thrust it into the touch hole to clear the vent and make an incision in the cartridge. Removing the priming iron, he replaced it by the priming tube--a thin tapering tube with very narrow bore. Into this he poured a quantity of fine mealed powder; then he laid a train of the same powder in the little groove cut in the gun from the touch hole towards the breech. With the end of his powder horn he slightly bruised the train, and the gun only awaited a spark from the match.

Everything was done very quickly, and Desmond watched the seamen with admiration. He himself had charge of the linstock, about which was wound several matches, consisting of lengths of twisted cotton wick steeped in lye. They had already been lighted, for they burnt so slowly that they would last for several hours.

"Now, we're shipshape," said Bulger. "Mind you, Burke, don't come to far for'ard with your linstock. I don't want the train fired with no sparks afore I'm ready. And 'ware o' the breech; she'll kick like a jumping jackass when the shot flies out of her, an'll knock your teeth out afore you can say Jack Robinson--

"Ah! there's the word at last; now, mateys, here goes!"

He laid the gun, waited for the ship to rise from a roll, and then took one of the matches, gently blew its smoldering end, and applied the glowing wick to the bruised part of the priming. There was a flash, a roar, and before Desmond could see the effect of the shot Bulger had closed the vent, the gun was run in, and the sponger was at work cleaning the chamber.

As the black smoke cleared away it was apparent that the seaman had not forgotten his cunning. The shot had struck the grab on the deck of the prow and smashed into the forecastle. But the bow chasers were apparently uninjured, for they replied a few seconds later.

"Ah! There's a wunner!" said Bulger admiringly.

A shot had carried away a yard of the gunwale of the Good Intent, scattering splinters far and wide, which inflicted nasty wounds on the second mate and a seaman on the quarterdeck. A jagged end of the wood flying high struck Diggle on the left cheek. He wiped away the blood imperturbably; it was evident that lack of courage was not among his defects.

Captain Barker's ire was now at white heat. Shouting an order to Bulger and the next man to make rapid practice with the two stern chasers, he prepared to fall off and bring the Good Intent's broadside to bear on the enemy.

But the next shot was decisive. Diggle had quietly strolled down to the gun next to Bulger's. It had just been reloaded. He bade the gun captain, in a low tone, to move aside. Then, with a glance to see that the priming was in order, he took careful sight, and waiting until the grab's main, mizzen and foremasts opened to view altogether, he applied the match. The shot sped true, and a second later the grab's mainmast, with sails and rigging, went by the board.

A wild cheer from the crew of the Good Intent acclaimed the excellent shot.

"By thunder!" said Bulger to Desmond. "Diggle may be a rogue and a vagabond, but he knows how to train a gun."

Captain Barker signified his approval by a tremendous mouth-filling oath.

But he was not yet safe. The second grab was following hard in the wake of the first; and it was plain that the two Indiamen were both somewhat faster than the Good Intent; for during the running fight that had just ended so disastrously for the grab, they had considerably lessened the gap between them and their quarry. Captain Barker watched them with an expression of fierce determination, but not without anxiety. If they should come within striking distance it was impossible to withstand successfully their heavier armament and larger crews. The firing had ceased: each vessel had crowded on all sail; and the brisk breeze must soon bring pursuer and pursued to a close engagement which could have only one result.

"I may be wrong, but seems to me we'd better say our prayers," Bulger remarked grimly to his gun crew.

But Desmond, gazing up at the shrouds, said suddenly:

"The wind's dropping. Look!"

It was true. Before the monsoon sets in in earnest it not unfrequently happens that the wind veers fitfully; a squall is succeeded almost instantaneously by a calm. So it was now. In less than an hour all five vessels were becalmed; and when night fell three miles separated the Good Intent from the second grab; the Indiamen lay a mile farther astern; and the damaged vessel was out of sight.

Captain Barker took counsel with his officers. He expected to be attacked during the night by the united boats of the pursuing fleet. Under cover of darkness they would be able to creep up close and board the vessel, and the captain knew well that if taken he would be treated as a pirate.

His papers were made out for Philadelphia; he had hoisted Portuguese colors, but the enemy at close quarters could easily see that the Good Intent was British built; he had disabled one of the Company's vessels; there would be no mercy for him.

He saw no chance of beating off the enemy; they would outnumber him by at least five to one. Even if the wind sprang up again there was small likelihood of escape. One or other of the pursuing vessels would almost certainly overhaul him, and hold him until the others came up.

"'Tis a 'tarnal fix," he said.

"Methinks 'tis a case of actum est de nobis," remarked Diggle pleasantly.

"Confound you!" said the captain with a burst of anger. "What could I expect with a gallows bird like you aboard? 'Tis enough to sink a vessel without shot."

Diggle's face darkened. But in a moment his smile returned.

"You are overwrought, captain," he said; "you are unstrung. 'Twould be ridiculous to take amiss words said in haste. In cold blood--well, you know me, Captain Barker. I will leave you to recover from your brief madness."

He went below. The captain was left with Mr. Toley and the other officers. Barker and Toley always got on well together, for the simple reason that the mate never thwarted his superior, never resented his abuse, but went quietly his own way. He listened now for a quarter of an hour, with fixed sadness of expression, while Captain Barker poured the vials of his wrath upon everything under the sun. When the captain had come to an end, and sunk into an estate of lowering dudgeon, Mr. Toley said quietly:

"'Tis all you say, sir, and more. I guess I've never seen a harder case.

But while you was speaking, something you said struck a sort of idea into my brain."

"That don't happen often. What is it?"

"Why, the sort of idea that came to me out o' what you was saying was just this. How would it be to take soundings?"

"So, that's your notion, is it? Hang me, are you a fool like the rest of 'em? You're always taking soundings! What in the name of thunder do you want to take soundings for?"

"Nothing particular, cap'n. That was the kind o' notion that come of what you was saying. Of course it depends on the depths hereabouts."

"Deep enough to sink you and your notions and all that's like to come of 'em. Darned if I ain't got the most lubberly company ever mortal man was plagued with. Officers and men, there en't one of you as is worth your salt, and you with your long face and your notions--why, hang me, you're no more good than the dirtiest waister afloat."

Mr. Toley smiled sadly, and ventured on no rejoinder. After the captain's outburst none of the group dared to utter a word. This pleased him no better; he cursed them all for standing mum; and spent ten minutes in reviling them in turn. Then his passion appeared to have burnt itself out. Turning suddenly to the melancholy mate, he said roughly:

"Go and heave your lead, then, and be hanged to it."

Mr. Toley walked away aft and ordered one of the men to heave the deep-sea lead. The plummet, shaped like the frustum of a cone, and weighing thirty pounds, was thrown out from the side in the line of the vessel's drift.

"By the mark sixty, less five," sang out the man when the lead touched the bottom.

"I guess that'll do," said the first mate, returning to the quarterdeck.

"Well, what about your notion?" said the captain scornfully. But he listened quietly and with an intent look upon his weatherbeaten face as Mr. Toley explained.

"You see, sir," he said, "while you was talking just now, I sort o' saw that if they attack us, 'twon't be for at least two hours after dark. The boats won't put off while there's light enough to see 'em; and won't hurry anyhow, 'cos if they did the men 'ud have nary much strength left to 'em. Well, they'll take our bearings, of course. Thinks I, owing to what you said, sir, what if we could shift 'em by half a mile or so? The boats 'ud miss us in the darkness."

"That's so," ejaculated the captain; "and what then?"

"Well, sir, 'tis there my idea of taking soundings comes in. The Good Intent can't be towed, not with our handful of men; but why shouldn't she be kedged? That's the notion, sir; and I guess you'll think it over."

"By jimmy, Toley, you en't come out o' Salem, Massachusetts, for nothing.

'Tis a notion, a rare one; Ben Barker en't the man to bear a grudge, and I take back them words o' mine--leastways some on 'em.

"Bo'sun, get ready to lower the longboat."

The longboat was lowered, out of sight of the enemy. A kedge anchor, fastened to a stout hawser, was put on board, and as soon as it was sufficiently dark to make so comparatively small an object as a boat invisible to the hostile craft, she put off at right angles to the Good Intent's previous course, the hawser attached to the kedge being paid out as the boat drew away. When it had gone about a fifth of a mile from the vessel the kedge was dropped, and a signal was given by hauling on the rope.

"Clap on, men!" cried Captain Barker. "Get a good purchase, and none of your singsong; avast all jabber."

The crew manned the windlass and began with a will to haul on the cable in dead silence. The vessel was slowly warped ahead. Meanwhile the longboat was returning; when she reached the side of the Good Intent, a second kedge was lowered into her, and again she put off, to drop the anchor two cables' length beyond the first, so that when the ship had tripped that, the second was ready to be hauled on.

When the Good Intent had been thus warped a mile from her position at nightfall, Captain Parker ordered the operation to be stopped. To avoid noise the boat was not hoisted in. No lights were shown, and the sky being somewhat overcast, the boat's crew found that the ship was invisible at the distance of a fourth of a cable's length.