Part 20 (1/2)

”We might increase the distance another quarter of a mile,” remarked Kit, ”by standing off from the ice and making the circle a little larger.”

”We'll do so,” said the captain. ”Port the helm, Bonney!”

During the next half-hour the schooner veered off two or three cables'

lengths. We watched the boat pulling back to the s.h.i.+p. It was nearly an hour getting around the ice-island. Finally it ran in alongside, and was taken up. With our gla.s.ses we could see that there was a good deal of running and hurrying about the deck.

”Some tall swearing going on there!” laughed Kit.

”Now look out for your heads!” said Raed. ”They are pointing a gun! I can see the muzzle of it! It has an ugly look!”

Some five minutes more pa.s.sed, when _puff_ came a little cloud of smoke. We held our breaths. It gives a fellow a queer sensation to know that a deadly projectile is coming for him. It might have been four seconds, though it seemed longer, when we saw the ice fly up rapidly in three or four places half a mile from the schooner as the ball came skipping along, and, bounding off the edge of the ice-field, plunged into the sea with a sullen _sudge_, throwing up a white fountain ten or a dozen feet high, which fell splas.h.i.+ng back. We all felt immensely relieved.

”That didn't come within three hundred yards of us,” said Kit.

”They'll give her more elevation next time,” said Wade. ”I don't believe that was an Armstrong slug, though: it acted too sort of lazy.”

”Look out, now!” exclaimed Raed. ”They are going to give us another!”

_Puff_--one--two--three--four! The ball struck near the edge of the ice-field, rose with a mighty bound twenty or thirty feet, and, describing a fine curve, struck spat upon the water; and again, rose, to plunge heavily down into the ocean two hundred feet off the port quarter.

”That was better,” said Raed. ”They are creeping up to us! The next one may come aboard!”

”But that's nothing more than an ordinary old twenty-four-pounder,”

said Wade. ”Bet they haven't got a rifled gun. Lucky for us!”

”I wish we had a good Dahlgren fifty-pound rifle!” exclaimed Kit: ”we would just make them get out of that quick! Wouldn't it be fun to chase them off through the straits here, with our big gun barking at their heels!”

”There they go again!” shouted the captain. ”Look out!”

We caught a momentary glimpse of the shot high in air, and held our breaths again as it came whirling down with a quick _thud_ into the sea a few hundred feet astern, and a little beyond us.

”Gracious!” cried Kit. ”If that had struck on the deck, it would have gone down, clean down through, I do believe!”

”Not so bad as that, I guess,” said the captain. ”That heap of sand-ballast in the hold would stop it, I reckon.”

”Think so?”

”Oh, yes!”

There was real comfort in that thought. It was therefore with diminished apprehension that we saw a fourth shot come roaring down a cable's length forward, and beyond the bows, and, a few seconds after, heard the dull boom following the shot. The report was always two or three seconds behind the ball.

They fired three more of the ”high ones,” as Kit called them. None of these came any nearer than the fourth had done. Then they tried another at a less elevation, which struck on the ice-field, and came skipping along as the first had done; but it fell short.

”Old Red-face will have to give it up, I guess.”' said Kit. ”He wants to hit us awfully, though! If he hadn't a loaded s.h.i.+p, bet you, we should see him coming up the channel between the islands there, swearing like a piper.”

”In that case we would just 'bout s.h.i.+p, and lead him on a chase round this ice-island till he got sick of it,” remarked the captain. ”'The Curlew' can give him points, and outsail that great hulk anywhere.”

”He's euchred, and may as well go about his business,” laughed Weymouth.