The Blue Clipper — page 23: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

IN A DPE DOA 25 by the fore-sheet, grinning from ear to ear. He was a queer- looking fellow, with great joints all over his frame protruding Deneath his clothing, and with a swarthy face, the chin of ~ which looked sharp enough to split a pine board. < * Ay, ay, it is!’ muttered the fellow to himself, protruding his chin across the lee rail; “ guess them chaps will git ‘ay, z ay! afore they board this craft.” ¢ Just then another sound, ominous to all hands, was heard Fight to leeward. iS It was the roaring made by the bows of another vessel com- ing straight for the schooner ! ~ Wand was out upon the jib-boom, and beheld the outlines of the cutter looming up through the mist! He was, as it were, between two fires—the cutter on one side of him, coming up, and the frigate on the other. Tn this dilemma the nicest seamanship was required. / “Luff a little!” was his quict order to the man at the The schooner was now running along on a straight line, right between the two vessels. “Ahoy, there!” came from the frigate; “why don’t you _. back your main yard ?” x xi Wand not answering, the suspicions of the frigate’s com- mander were evidently excited, although, owing to the thick mist and the change in the schooner’s course, she was now in- 2 visible to him. ' There was a flash and a puff of smoke, then the crash of a gun followed by a crash to leeward. : _ The cutter’s jib-boom had been carried away by the shot '} meant for the schooner. ' At this Tom Bend, the Cape Cod man, thrusting both hands im his pockets, and silently langhing, leaned so far back that his sharp chin pointed up to the north star. on went the schooner, tearing up the water with her long, sword-fish bow. ' “Now, then, keep off!” said Wand to the helmsman. ___ He was obeyed, and in a few minutes the schooner had left _ ber two enemies astern, the wrangling voices of their com- | Manders ringing upon the ears of her crew. ~The captain kept straight on for New Orleans. comichooks:com pi Sees te : ‘ et ae