"Am I the man to run before a Spaniard? As it is I do
no more than lure her well away from land."
Sir Oliver understood, and was silent thereafter. He observed a bo'sun
and his mates staggering in the waist under loads of cutlasses and small
arms which they stacked in a rack about the mainmast. Then the gunner,
a swarthy, massive fellow, stark to the waist with a faded scarf tied
turban-wise about his head, leapt up the companion to the brass
carronade on the larboard quarter, followed by a couple of his men.
Master Leigh called up the bo'sun, bade him take the wheel, and
dispatched the mate forward to the forecastle, where another gun was
being prepared for action.
Thereafter followed a spell of racing, the Spaniard ever lessening the
distance between them, and the land dropping astern until it was no more
than a hazy line above the shimmering sea. Suddenly from the Spaniard
appeared a little cloud of white smoke, and the boom of a gun followed,
and after it came a splash a cable's length ahead of the Swallow's bows.
Linstock in hand the brawny gunner on the poop stood ready to answer
them when the word should be given. From below came the gunner's mate
to report himself ready for action on the main-deck and to receive his
orders.
Came another shot from the Spaniard, again across the bows of the
Swallow.
"'Tis a clear invitation to heave to," said Sir Oliver.
The skipper snarled in his fiery beard.
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