"
"I want the little villain to pass up my cartridges," returned the angry
old seaman; "but if you'll be so good, sir, as to hit him a crack or
two, now and then, as he goes by you to the magazine, the monkey will
learn his manners, and the schooner's work will be all the better done
for it. A young herring-faced monkey! to meddle with a tool ye don't
know the use of. If your parents had spent more of their money on your
edication, and less on your outfit, you'd ha' been a gentleman to what
ye are now."
"Hurrah! Tom, hurrah!" cried Barnstable, a little impatiently; "is your
namesake never to open his throat again!"
"Ay, ay, sir; all ready," grumbled the cockswain; "depress a little; so
--so; a damned young baboon-behaved curmudgeon; overhaul that forward
fall more; stand by with your match--but I'll pay him!--fire!" This was
the actual commencement of the fight; for as the shot of Tom Coffin
traveled, as he had intimated, very much in the same direction, their
enemy found the sport becoming too hot to be endured in silence, and the
report of the second gun from the Ariel was instantly followed by that
of the whole broadside of the Alacrity. The shot of the cutter flew in a
very good direction, but her guns were too light to give them efficiency
at that distance; and as one or two were heard to strike against the
bends of the schooner, and fall back, innocuously, into the water, the
cockswain, whose good-humor became gradually restored as the combat
thickened, remarked with his customary apathy:
"Them count for no more than love-taps--does the Englishman think that
we are firing salutes!"
"Stir him up, Tom! every blow you give him will help to open his eyes,"
cried Barnstable, rubbing his hands with glee, as he witnessed the
success of his efforts to close.
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