is.

But the drooping spirits of the English were suddenly revived, by an
event which crowned the scene by an act on the part of one of the
consorts of the Richard, the incredible atrocity of which has induced
all humane minds to impute it rather to some incomprehensible mistake
than to the malignant madness of the perpetrator.

The cautious approach and retreat of a consort of the Serapis, the
Scarborough, before the moon rose, has already been mentioned. It is now
to be related how that, when the moon was more than an hour high, a
consort of the Richard, the Alliance, likewise approached and retreated.
This ship, commanded by a Frenchman, infamous in his own navy, and
obnoxious in the service to which he at present belonged; this ship,
foremost in insurgency to Paul hitherto, and which, for the most part,
had crept like a poltroon from the fray; the Alliance now was at hand.
Seeing her, Paul deemed the battle at an end. But to his horror, the
Alliance threw a broadside full into the stern of the Richard, without
touching the Serapis. Paul called to her, for God's sake to forbear
destroying the Richard. The reply was, a second, a third, a fourth
broadside, striking the Richard ahead, astern, and amidships. One of the
volleys killed several men and one officer. Meantime, like carpenters'
augers, and the sea-worm called Remora, the guns of the Serapis were
drilling away at the same doomed hull. After performing her nameless
exploit, the Alliance sailed away, and did no more. She was like the
great fire of London, breaking out on the heel of the great Plague. By
this time, the Richard had so many shot-holes low down in her hull, that
like a sieve she began to settle.

"Do you strike?" cried the English captain.

"I have not yet begun to fight," howled sinking Paul.

This summons and response were whirled on eddies of smoke and flame.
Both vessels were now on fire. The men of either knew hardly which to
do; strive to destroy the enemy, or save themselves. In the midst of
this, one hundred human beings, hitherto invisible strangers, were
suddenly added to the rest. Five score English prisoners, till now
confined in the Richard's hold, liberated in his consternation by the
master at arms, burst up the hatchways. One of them, the captain of a
letter of marque, captured by Paul, off the Scottish coast, crawled
through a port, as a burglar through a window, from the one ship to the
other, and reported affairs to the Englis