e right and the left. But above the roar of the cannon came the
sharper sound of the piping shot, the crashing of riven planks, and the
occasional heavy thud as spar or block came hurtling on to the deck.
The lieutenants paced up and down the line of guns, while Captain
Johnson fanned the smoke away with his cocked-hat and peered eagerly
out.

"This is rare, Bobby!" said he, as the lieutenant joined him.
Then, suddenly restraining himself, "What have we lost, Mr. Wharton?"

"Our maintopsail yard and our gaff, sir."

"Where's the flag?"

"Gone overboard, sir."

"They'll think we've struck! Lash a boat's ensign on the starboard arm
of the mizzen cross-jack-yard."

"Yes, sir."

A round-shot dashed the binnacle to pieces between them. A second
knocked two marines into a bloody palpitating mash. For a moment the
smoke rose, and the English captain saw that his adversary's heavier
metal was producing a horrible effect. The _Leda_ was a shattered
wreck. Her deck was strewed with corpses. Several of her portholes
were knocked into one, and one of her eighteen-pounder guns had been
thrown right back on to her breech, and pointed straight up to the sky.
The thin line of marines still loaded and fired, but half the guns were
silent, and their crews were piled thickly round them.

"Stand by to repel boarders!" yelled the captain.

"Cutlasses, lads, cutlasses!" roared Wharton.

"Hold your volley till they touch!" cried the captain of marines.

The huge loom of the Frenchman was seen bursting through the smoke.
Thick clusters of boarders hung upon her sides and shrouds. A final
broad-side leapt from her ports, and the main-mast of the _Leda_,
snapping short off a few feet above the deck, spun into the air and
crashed down upon the port guns, killing ten men and putting the whole
battery out of action. An instant later the two ships scraped together,
and the starboard bower anchor of the _Gloire_ caught the mizzen-chains
of the _Leda_ upon the port side. With a yell the black swarm of
boarders steadied themselves for a spring.

But their feet were never to reach that blood-stained deck. From some
where there came a well-aimed whiff of grape, and another, and another.
The English marines and seamen, waiting with cutlass and musket behind
the silent guns, saw with amazement the dark masses thinning and
shredding away. At the same time the port broadside of the Frenchman
burst into a roar.

"Clear away the w