The captain was foaming with rage, and shouting orders which the crew hurried to execute.

On the deck near the foremast lay the man who had been on the lookout, and who had been felled with a handspike by the captain when he ran out on deck, at the first alarm.

Although at first flurried and alarmed, the crew speedily recovered themselves, and executed with promptitude the orders which were given.
There was a haze on the water, but a light wind was stirring, and the vessel was moving through the water at some three knots an hour.

As soon as her course had been changed, so as to bring the wind forward of the beam, which was her best point of sailing, the men were sent to the guns; the first mate placing himself at a long eighteen pounder, which was mounted as a pivot gun aft, a similar weapon being in her bows.

All this took but four or five minutes, and shot after shot from the sloop hummed overhead.
The firing now ceased, as the change of course of the lugger had placed the sloop dead astern of her; and the latter was unable, therefore, to fire even her bow chasers without yawing.