impressive characteristic of the struggle was _noise_--the
incessant crash of the guns, the discharge of which set up a continuous
tremor of the ship throughout the entire fabric of her; the rending and
splintering of timber as the enemy's shot tore its way through the
frigate's sides; the shrieks and groans of the wounded and dying, cut
into at frequent intervals by some sharp order from the captain or the
first lieutenant; the curt commands of the captains of the guns: "Stop
the vent! run in! sponge! load! run out!" and so on; the creak of the
tackle blocks, the rumble of the gun carriages, the clatter of
handspikes, the dull thud of the rammers driving home the shot, the
rattling volleys of musketry from the marines on the poop, the
occasional rending crash of a falling spar, and the terrific babble of
the Frenchmen on either side of us, sounding high and clear in the
occasional brief intervals when all the guns happened to be silent
together for a moment,--I can only compare it all to the horrible
confusion raging through the disordered imagination of one in the
clutches of a fiercely burning fever. Our people fought grimly and in
silence, save for an occasional cheer at some unusually successful shot;
but the Frenchmen jabbered away incessantly, sometimes reviling us and
shaking their fists at us through their open ports, and more often
squabbling among themselves.

At length, when the fight had lasted about half an hour, the wind
dropped to a dead calm, and the Frenchman on our starboard side, who had
forged somewhat ahead of us, made an effort to lay himself athwart our
bows before he lost way altogether. But we were too quick for him, for
his mainmast was towing alongside and stopped his way; so we did with
him what he tried to do to us, driving square athwart his bows as his
bowsprit came thrusting in between our fore and main masts, when we lost
not a moment in lashing the spar to our main rigging. But, after all,
it resolved itself into tit for tat, for the other fellow put his helm
hard aport and just managed to drive square athwart our stern, where he
raked us most unmercifully for fully five minutes, until he drove clear,
bringing down all three of our masts before he left us. Of course we
could only retaliate upon him with our stern-chasers, which we played
upon him with considerable effect; but what we lacked in the way of
adequate retort to him we amply made up for to his consort, raking her
time af