Bon homme Richard rolling to
larboard, and the smoke eddied from our hatches and lifted out of the
space between the ships. The Englishman had blown off his gun-ports.
And next some one shouted that our battery of twelves was fighting them
muzzle to muzzle below, our rammers leaning into the Serapis to send
their shot home. No chance then for the thoughts which had tortured us
in moments of suspense. That was a fearful hour, when a shot had scarce
to leap a cannon's length to find its commission; when the belches of
the English guns burned the hair of our faces; when Death was sovereign,
merciful or cruel at his pleasure. The red flashes disclosed many an act
of coolness and of heroism. I saw a French lad whip off his coat when a
gunner called for a wad, and another, who had been a scavenger, snatch
the rammer from Pearce's hands when he staggered with a grape-shot
through his chest. Poor Jack Pearce! He did not live to see the work
'Scolding Sairy' was to do that night. I had but dragged him beyond
reach of the recoil when he was gone.

Then a cry came floating down from aloft. Thrice did I hear it, like
one waking out of a sleep, ere I grasped its import. "The Alliance! The
Alliance!" But hardly had the name resounded with joy throughout the
ship, when a hail of grape and canister tore through our sails from aft
forward. "She rakes us! She rakes us!" And the French soldiers tumbled
headlong down from the poop with a wail of "Les Anglais font prise!"
"Her Englishmen have taken her, and turned her guns against us!" Our
captain was left standing alone beside the staff where the stars and
stripes waved black in the moonlight.

"The Alliance is hauling off, sir!" called the midshipman of the
mizzen-top. "She is making for the Pallas and the Countess of
Scarborough."

"Very good, sir," was all the commodore said.

To us hearkening for his answer his voice betrayed no sign of dismay.
Seven times, I say, was that battle lost, and seven times regained
again. What was it kept the crews at their quarters and the officers
at their posts through that hell of flame and shot, when a madman could
scarce have hoped for victory? What but the knowledge that somewhere
in the swirl above us was still that unswerving and indomitable man who
swept all obstacles from before him, and into whose mind the thought of
defeat could not enter. His spirit held us to our task, for flesh and
blood might not have endured alone.

We had now but on