But the lazy motion of the vessel did not answer to the impatience of those who directed her movements nor did it meet the pressing exigencies of the moment.  In the mean time, while Bignall, and the officers whose duties kept them near his person, assisted by the sail-trimmers, were thus occupied, the people in the batteries continued their murderous employment.  The roar of cannon was still constant, and nearly overwhelming, though there were instants when the deep ominous mutterings of the atmosphere were too distinctly audible to be mistaken.  Still the eye could lend no assistance to the hearing, in determining the judgment of the mariners.  Hulls, spars, and sails were alike enveloped in the curling wreaths which wrapped heaven, air, vessels, and ocean, alike, in one white, obscure, foggy mantle.  Even the persons of the crew were merely seen at instants, labouring at the guns, through brief and varying openings.

“I never knew the smoke pack so heavy on the clerk of a ship before,” said Bignall, with a concern that even his caution could not entirely repress.  “Keep the helm a-port—­jam it hard, sir!  By Heaven Mr Wilder, those knaves well know they are struggling for their lives!”

“The fight is all our own!” shouted the second lieutenant, from among the guns, stanching, as he spoke, the blood of a severe splinter-wound in the face, and far too intent on his own immediate occupation to have noticed the signs of the weather.  “He has not answered with a single gun, for near a minute.”

“’Fore George, the rogues have enough!” exclaimed the delighted Bignall.  “Three cheers for vic——­”

“Hold, sir!” interrupted Wilder, with sufficient decision to check his Commander’s premature exultation; “on my life, our work is not so soon ended.  I think, indeed, his guns are silent;—­but, see! the smoke is beginning to lift.  In a few more minutes, if our own fire should cease, the view will be clear.”

A shout from the men in the batteries interrupted his words; and then came a general cry that the pirates were sheering off.  The exultation at this fancied evidence of their superiority was, however, soon and fearfully interrupted.  A bright, vivid flash penetrated through the dense vapour which still hung about them in a most extraordinary manner, and was followed by a crash from the heavens, to which the Simultaneous explosion of fifty pieces of artillery would have sounded feeble.

“Call the people from their guns!” said Bignall, in those suppressed tones that are only more portentous from their forced and unnatural calmness:  “Call them away at once, sir, and get the canvas in!”

Wilder, startled more at the proximity and apparent weight of the squall than at words to which he had been long accustomed, delayed not to give an order that was seemingly so urgent.  The men left their batteries, like athletae retiring from the arena, some bleeding and faint, some still fierce and angry, and all more or less excited by the furious scene in which they had just been actors.  Many sprung to the well-known ropes, while others, as they ascended into the cloud which still hung on the vessel became lost to the eye in her rigging.