Marcel answered something, but what it was I could not catch, and then the pair of them came racing up on deck.  They had scarcely arrived when another shot came from the schooner, crashing through the bulwarks just forward of the fore rigging, dismounting a gun, and playing havoc with the men who crowded that part of the deck.  Five were killed outright and nine wounded by that one shot and the splinters that it created. Leroy at once called the crew to quarters and ordered them to return the schooner's fire; but the latter was too far off for either the carronades or the 6-pounders to reach her; and my spirits began to rise, for if the schooner could only continue as she had begun she would soon compel _La Mouette_ to strike.  And there was every prospect of this happening, for the _Gadfly_ had now got our range to a nicety, and shot after shot hulled us, playing the very mischief with us, dismounting another gun, strewing our decks with killed and wounded, and cutting up our rigging, but, most unfortunately, never touching our spars.  Leroy stamped fore and aft the deck, cursing like a madman, shaking his fist at the schooner, glowering savagely at me, and whistling for a wind.