head--

"They are firing at us--hadn't you better stop?"

"Stop, be d----d! Do you want to be hung or sent to the Siberian
mines?"

The next shot fell short of the stern. They now came thick and heavy,
but the _Claverhouse_ by this time was racing away, and was quickly
out of range. The most critical time arrived when she was rushed
headlong over the line of torpedoes; and as soon as the outer gunboat
was opened clear of the breakwater, she, too, commenced to fire. Once
the line of mines was safely passed, the course was set to hug the
land. The firing from the torpedo gunboat was wildly inaccurate, never
a shot coming within fathoms of their target, and soon the little
steamer was far beyond the reach of the Tsar's guns.

Her captain had no faith in the report industriously circulated that
the Crimean coast and the Black Sea were impenetrably mined, so he
proceeded gaily on his voyage, shaking hands with himself for having
succeeded in running the gauntlet without a single man being hurt, or
the breaking of a rope-yarn. The crew were boisterously proud of the
night's exploit. They knew that no pecuniary benefit would be derived
by them, and were content to believe that they had been parties to a
dashing piece of devil-may-care work. The average British sailor of
that period loved to be in a scrape, and revelled in the sport of
doing any daring act to get out of it. It never occurred to the
captain that his crew might jib at the thought of undertaking so
perilous a course. He had been reared in the courage of the class to
which he belonged, and his confidence in the loyalty of his men was