"You don't know my father.
He'll keep on as long as the lugger will swim." I shook my head as I strained my eyes at the exciting chase going on before me.
Bigley was right, for in place of lowering sails in token of submission, the lugger ran out another from her bows, and kept on her rapid flight, altering her course though, so as not to offer so fair a mark to the cutter, and the cutter seemed to spit out viciously another puff of white smoke, and then there was a dull thud and an echo among the rocks.
We could not trace the course of the shot, but it evidently did not hit its mark, the first having probably been aimed ahead.
"They can't hit her," cried Bigley, clapping his hands.

"Oh, I wish I was aboard." "What, to be shot at ?" I said.
"Let them shoot!" he cried.

"I should like to be there.

Now, then, what did I tell you?
The cutter is not going half so fast now." He was quite right, for, as the white-sailed vessel got beyond the entrance to the Gap, she was more and more under the shelter of the huge headland and the mighty cliffs that ran on for miles, and instead of lying over so that we half expected to see her keel, she rode more steadily and upright in the water, and her speed was evidently far less.
Another white puff of smoke, and another shot sent skipping after the lugger, but with what result we could not see.

The firing made no difference, though, to the lugger, which continued its course towards the west, and Bigley gave me a triumphant look from time to time.
The firing had now become regular, and had brought down all the miners from the pit, and Mother Bonnet, to see the exciting chase.