One of the indomitable race on the gangway, one at the foremast, two at
the wheel, conned and steered the great ship down on a hundred
matchlocks, and a grinning broadside, just as they would have conned and
steered her into a British harbor.

"Starboard!" said Dodd, in a deep calm voice, with a motion of his hand.

"Starboard it is."

The pirate wriggled ahead a little. The man forward made a silent signal
to Dodd.

"Port!" said Dodd, quietly.

"Port it is."

But at this critical moment the pirate astern sent a mischievous shot,
and knocked one of the men to atoms at the helm.

Dodd waved his hand without a word, and another man rose from the deck,
and took his place in silence, and laid his unshaking hand on the wheel
stained with that man's warm blood whose place he took.

The high ship was now scarce sixty yards distant: _she seemed to know_:
she reared her lofty figurehead with great awful shoots into the air.

But now the panting pirates got their new foresail hoisted with a joyful
shout: it drew, the schooner gathered way, and their furious consort
close on the _Agra's_ heels just then scourged her deck with grape.