and dismounted a carronade and stove in the ship's quarter-boat, by way
of a parting kick.

The men hurled a contemptuous cheer after him; they thought they had
beaten him off. But Dodd knew better. He was but retiring a little way
to make a more deadly attack than ever: he would soon wear, and cross the
_Agra's_ defenceless bows, to rake her fore and aft at pistol-shot
distance; or grapple, and board the enfeebled ship two hundred strong.

Dodd flew to the helm, and with his own hands put it hard aweather, to
give the deck guns one more chance, the last, of sinking or disabling the
_Destroyer_. As the ship obeyed, and a deck gun bellowed below him, he
saw a vessel running out from Long Island, and coming swiftly up on his
lee quarter.

It was a schooner. Was she coming to his aid?

Horror! A black flag floated from her foremast head.

While Dodd's eyes were staring almost out of his head at this death-blow
to hope, Monk fired again; and just then a pale face came close to
Dodd's, and a solemn voice whispered in his ear: "Our ammunition is
nearly done!"

Dodd seized Sharpe's hand convulsively, and pointed to the pirate's
consort coming up to finish them; and said, with the calm of a brave
man's despair, "Cutlasses! and die hard!"

At that moment the master gunner fired his last gun. It sent a chain
shot on board the retiring pirate, took off a Portuguese head and spun it