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"Well, sir," said I, speaking out, "just before that mass of clouds or fog bank came down on the wind, shutting out the ship from view, she yawed a bit off her course, and I saw somebody on her deck aft." "What!" cried the skipper, interrupting me. "Was she so close as that?" "Yes, sir," said I. "She did not seem to be a hundred yards away at the moment, if that."
Two men were in the boat, sitting low down, one by the bows, the other at the rudder. The head was not kept to the wind; it yawed and fell away. As the day grew brighter, I began waving the last rag of my jacket to them; but they did not notice me, and sat still, facing each other. I went to the lowest point of the low headland, and gesticulated and shouted.
Under control from the bridge, the huge ship yawed until her nose and thus the line of thrust along her longitudinal axis was pointed toward her destination. "Full acceleration, Mister Gabriel," said Captain Quill over the intercom. Mike the Angel watched the meters climb again as the ship speared away from the sun at an ever-increasing velocity.
The gun was instantly again loaded, but before they had time to fire, the pirate yawed and let fly a bow chaser, the shot from which flew through the main-topsail, though without doing further damage. The colonel again fired, but again the shot fell short, to his no slight rage. "I see how it is, sir," observed Bowse, "that fellow has a long nine in his bows, while our gun is only a carronade.
Running at full speed, the torpedo boat, even in this moderate sea, deemed it prudent to keep the launching tube closed, and selected a range of 250 yards for opening it and firing. Just at the moment of discharge a little sea came on board, the boat yawed, the torpedo aim was changed more than 30 deg., and it passed astern without touching its object.
But here he should have stopped; the effect of throwing the next two guns overboard was pernicious. The vessel fell by the head; her stern was out of the water; she steered wild, yawed, and decreased in her rate of sailing in a surprising manner. "Cut away the bower anchors," said the captain.
As soon as the boat was up she made all sail, and came foaming after us, as if she were in as great rage as the captain and those on board of her. Every now and then she yawed to throw a shot at us from her bow-chasers; but that we didn't mind, as the yawing checked her way, and it's not easy to hit a low vessel like a lugger in a toppling sea.
Presently she yawed again in that clumsy way which we were wondering at, and showed us her whole side, pierced for sixteen oars, and bright with the shields, for a moment, and then she was back on her course. We could not see the steersman for the sail, in any case, but we saw no one on deck. Now we were right across her bows, and within hail of her, and yet no man had shown himself.
Presently the Frenchman yawed, and a shot from a long thirty-two came skipping over the water. It killed the quartermaster and took off both of Lankey's legs. "Tell the purser our account is squared," said the dying boy, with a feeble smile. The fight raged fiercely for two hours.
After watching the schooner for a quarter of an hour, Will said: “I don’t think she gains upon us at all; lower a sail over the bow to deaden her way. A small topsail will do; I only want to check her half a knot an hour.” It was an hour before the schooner yawed and fired her bow-guns. “That is good,” Will said to Dimchurch; “it shows that she doesn’t carry a long-tom.
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