Cover your gun pans to keep your priming dry.

Here, Tom, take the tiller.

I must go to the bow." Tom took the helm, and as he did so Sam said to him:-- "Keep straight ahead till I give you orders to change your course, and then do it instantly, no matter what happens.

I've an idea that I know how to manage this affair now.

You have only to listen for orders, and obey them promptly." "I'll do what you order, no matter what it is," said Tom, and Sam went at once to the bow of his boat.
His boys were crouching down on their knees to keep themselves as steady as they could, and their guns, which they were protecting from the rain, were not visible to the men in the other boat, who were astonished to find that they had, as they supposed, only to arrest a boat's crew of unarmed boys.
The boats were now within a stone's throw of each other, the English boat lying a little to the left of Sam's track, but the officer in command of it, supposing that the party would surrender at the word of command, ordered his men not to open fire.
"They's a mighty heap on 'em for sich a little boat," whispered Sid Russell.
"So much the better," said Sam.