Jerry and I were allowed to walk about the deck, and to observe what was going on.  We remarked the captain watching the corvette.  "Depend on it," said Jerry, "he has been leaving some forged paper with the Americans, or playing them some trick which he is afraid will be found out."  I thought at first this must be Jerry's fancy.  We had no opportunity of asking Mr McRitchie's opinion without being overheard. Away we glided over the smooth ocean.  More and more we increased our distance from the corvette.  The further ahead we got, the more Captain Bruno seemed pleased; and as I watched his countenance, I became convinced that Jerry's surmises were correct.  As we walked the deck and watched the captain, we agreed that if he dared he would like to wet the sails to make them hold more wind.  An hour or so passed away, when suddenly the corvette yawed a little, a puff of white smoke appeared, with a sharp report, and a shot came flying over the water close to us. "Ah! have you found me out, my friends?" exclaimed Captain Bruno, leaping down from the taffrail.  "All hands on deck!  Swing up the long guns!  We must try to wing this fellow before he contrives to clip our feathers."  In an instant everybody was alert: tackles were rove, and, in a short time, two long and very heavy guns, with their carriages, were hoisted up from the hold.  The guns were quickly mounted and run out, and a brisk fire kept up at the corvette.  She also continued to fire, but as to do so with effect she had to yaw each time, the schooner, which could fire her stern guns as fast as she could load them, had a considerable advantage.  It was a game at long bowls, for the two vessels were already so far apart that it required very good gunnery to send a shot with anything like a correct aim.  Silva seemed to be one of the best marksmen on board.  Several times, when he fired, the shot went through the sails of the ship of war.  The great object of the pirates was to cripple her, as was that of the Americans to bring down some of the schooner's spars.  Had the latter found out the trick sooner which had been played them by the pirate, the probabilities are that some of our rigging would have been cut through, and we should have been overtaken; now there appeared every chance that we should effect our escape.  Still, several of the shot which came from the corvette struck us, or went through our sails; but the damage was instantly repaired.  The crew had got up from below a store of spare ropes, and sails, and spars, so that even should we receive any severe injury, it could, we saw, be speedily put to rights.  As I before said, our prospects of getting our throats cut, or our brains blown or knocked out, were pretty well balanced against those of our being made free, should the corvette come up with us; so we scarcely knew what to wish for.  Every time a shot came near the vessel, the pirates cast such angry glances at us, as if we had had something to do with the matter, that we half expected some of them would let fly their pistols and put an end to our lives.