"Stop firing!" commanded Captain Avery, less than a quarter of an hour later. "That black flag feller is careenin'! She's fillin'! I declare, she must ha' been a mere shell. The _Noank's_ timbers'd ha' stood a heavier poundin' than that."
"It was pretty heavy pounding, Lyme," replied Sam Prentice. "Our timbers are good, but we don't care to be struck at short range. Not by heavy shot, anyhow. You see, that redskin jest plugged her every time. Some of his hits must ha' gone clean through."
"Guert," said Up-na-tan to his pupil in the science of gunnery, "good! Boy aim twice. No miss. Boy make good gunner some day."
It was just so. The Manhattan had indulgently promised Guert to do some actual battle practice, and had made him as proud as a peacock. It was true that he had fired under close supervision and direction, but it had been a valuable teaching, and Guert almost believed that he could have done it all alone--with the right kind of men to handle the pivot-gun for him.
"Boy good eye," said Up-na-tan. "Hold hand steady. Hit mark. Ugh!"
Over, over, over, rapidly leaned the shattered hull of the _Leon_, the water pouring into her through the gaps in her starboard side. Down from her had dropped boat after boat, to be crowded with her surviving wolves, no effort being made by them to save any of their wounded companions. She had now drifted into pretty close neighborhood with the _Santa Teresa_, and a wild shout went up as the boats pulled away.
It was the last resource of utter desperation, and they might even now have succeeded in gaining possession of the _Santa Teresa_ if she had been unassisted.
"Stand by your guns, men!" shouted Captain Velasquez. "Let them have it as they come!"
"Steady about," said Captain Avery to the steersman of the _Noank_, "we must take care o' those boats. Oh! how I wish we were nearer! Give it to 'em!"
"Ay, ay, sir!" came back from his gunners, "but the Spaniard's in the way. As soon as we clear her--"
"Down with the mainsail! Haul on that jib! Port! Here we come!"
It was not round shot this time. The long sixes had been glutted with grape-shot, and so had the pivot-gun. The Spanish cannon, hastily fired by excited men, had done some execution, but not one of the buccaneer boats had been disabled. The foremost of them was within ten fathoms of the _Santa Teresa_, and the swarm of murderers would have been over her bulwarks in another minute, when past her port quarter swept the Yankee privateer.