Both officers, as they received their orders, saluted.

Bang!  The signal gun barked out, the flash from the muzzle sending a long tongue of red through the darkness.

But the stranger continued on her way through the night.  Ensign Fullerton regarded the young commanding officer of the gunboat expectantly.

“Put a solid shot across her bows, Mr. Fullerton.”

Again the order was transmitted, with little noise.  The gun-crew then awaited the signal from the executive officer.

Bang!  This time the solid shot struck the water a bare fifty feet ahead of the strange craft’s bows as she forged on through the waves, her bow stirring up a gleaming white foam.

“That ought to stop her!” muttered Lieutenant Jack Benson, impatiently.

“I don’t believe it is going to, though, sir,” reported Ensign Fullerton, studying the other vessel through his night-glass.  “I don’t see a sign of motion on the stranger’s decks.”

“Load again with solid shot, then,” directed the gunboat’s young commander.  “This time hit her square in the fore-rigging.”

“I’ll step below and sight the piece myself,” replied Ensign Fullerton.

A few moments later the executive officer reported the port bow gun in readiness for service.

“Fire whenever you are ready, Mr. Fullerton,” called Lieutenant Jack, in a low voice.

Bang! barked the bow gun, a moment later.  Over aboard the stranger there was a crash, a tearing sound, and then her foretopmast toppled, hanging loosely in place by the stays.

“That’ll stop her, I reckon.” chuckled Jack Benson.

And “stop her” it did.  There was no choice but to stop.  This gunboat of the United States Navy was in a position to shoot every standing stick out of the schooner, if provoked too far, and the legal right to go to such lengths existed.

“Stranger is heaving to, sir,” reported Ensign Somers.

“Very good, Mr. Somers.  Order the power launch lowered.  Put off as quickly as possible.”

“Very good, sir.”

Ensign Fullerton hastened back to the bridge, to assume command, while Hal hastings stood by him.

Boat-handlers and armed sailors and marines scampered over the side.  Down the gangway followed Jack and Eph, looking very stately as they held their swords clear of their legs.  Busily the launch chugged across the intervening water gap.

“Schooner, ahoy!” hailed Eph, as the launch ran in alongside “What craft is that?”

“Schooner ‘Malta,’ Cooper, master, from Sidney, N.S.,” came the reply of a man at the after rail.

“Seems to me I’ve seen you before, in Cobtown!” suddenly exclaimed Eph Somers, as he leaped over the rail in advance of his marines.

“C-Cob—­town?” demanded the schooner’s master, falteringly.

“By the great Constitution!  We’ve caught the ‘Juanita’ in disguise!” bellowed back Ensign Eph, turning to Jack Benson, who was just boarding.  “See!  There’s the false stern structure.”