ahead, locked in the
ice, stood the _Profound_, and beside the French vessel three English
frigates, the _Hampshire_, the _Deering_, the _Hudson's Bay_, on their
annual voyage to Nelson! A lane of water opened before Iberville.
Like a bird the _Pelican_ spread her wings to the wind and fled.

[Illustration: PLAN OF QUEBEC (after Franquelin, 1683)]

September 3 Iberville sighted Port Nelson, and for two days cruised the
offing, scanning the sea for the rest of his fleet. Early on September
5 the sails of three vessels heaved and rose above the watery horizon.
Never doubting these were his own ships, Iberville signaled. There was
no answer. A sailor scrambled to the masthead and shouted down
terrified warning. These were not the French ships! They were the
English frigates bearing straight down on the single French vessel
commanded by Iberville!

On one side was the enemy's fort, on the other the enemy's fleet coming
over the waves before a clipping wind, all sails set. Of Iberville's
crew forty men were ill of scurvy. Twenty-five had gone ashore to
reconnoiter. He had left one hundred and fifty fighting men. Amid a
rush of orders, ropes were stretched across decks for handhold, cannon
were unplugged, and the batterymen below decks stripped themselves for
the hot work ahead. The soldiers assembled on decks, sword in hand,
and the Canadian bushrovers stood to the fore, ready to leap across the
enemy's decks.

By nine in the morning the ships were abreast, and roaring cannonades
from the English cut the decks of the _Pelican_ to kindling wood and
set the masts in flame. At the same instant one fell blast of musketry
mowed down forty French; but Iberville's batterymen below decks had now
ceased to pour a stream of fire into the English hulls. The odds were
three to one, and for four hours the battle raged, the English shifting
and sheering to lock in death grapple, Iberville's sharpshooters
peppering the decks of the foe.

It had turned bitterly cold. The blood on the decks became ice, and
each roll of the sea sent wounded and dead weltering {186} from rail to
rail. Such holes had been torn in the hulls of both English and French
ships that the gunners below decks were literally looking into each
other's smoke-grimmed faces. Suddenly all hands paused. A frantic
scream cleft the air. The vessels were careening in a tempestuous sea,
for the great ship _Hampshire_ had refused to answer to the wheel, had