I paid it
off, and, God help me, I have never thriven since, enemy although he was.
I see the poor fellow's face yet, as I!"--He checked himself suddenly, as
if aware that he might say more than could be conveniently retracted. "But
I dare not be taken; let that satisfy you, Master Cringle, so go
below--below with you, sir"--I saw he had succeeded in lashing himself into
a fury--"or, by the Almighty God, who hears me, I shall be tempted to do
another deed, the remembrance of which will haunt me till my dying day."
All this passed in no time, as we say, much quicker than one can read it;
and I now saw that the corvette had braced up sharp to the wind again, on
the same tack that we were on; so I slipped down like an eel, and once more
stretched myself beside Paul, on the lee side of the cabin. We soon found
that she was indeed after us in earnest, by the renewal of the cannonade,
and the breezing up of the small arms again. Two round shot now tore right
through the deck, just beneath the larboard coamings of the main hatchway;
the little vessel's deck, as she lay over, being altogether exposed to, the
enemy's fire, they made her whole frame tremble again, smashing every thing
in their way to shivers, and going right out through her bottom on the
opposite side, within a dozen streaks of her keel, while the rattling of
the clustered grapeshot every now and then made us start, the musketry all
the while peppering away like a hail shower.
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