an, "Do you surrender?"

"Never!" retorted the gallant Morris.

The crux of what followed was down in the engine-room. Two gongs, the
signal to stop, were quickly followed by three, the signal to reverse.
There was an ominous pause, then a crash, shaking us all off our feet.
The engines labored. The vessel was shaken in every fiber. Our bow was
visibly depressed. We seemed to be bearing down with a weight on our
prow. Thud, thud, thud, came the rain of shot on our shield from the
double-decked battery of the _Congress_. There was a terrible crash in
the fire-room. For a moment we thought one of the boilers had burst. No,
it was the explosion of a shell in our stack. Was any one hit? No, thank
God! The firemen had been warned to keep away from the up-take, so the
fragments of shell fell harmlessly on the iron floor-plates.

We had rushed on the doomed ship, relentless as fate, crashing through
her barricade of heavy spars and torpedo fenders, striking her below her
starboard fore-chains, and crushing far into her. For a moment the whole
weight of her hung on our prow and threatened to carry us down with her,
the return wave of the collision curling up into our bow port.

The _Cumberland_ began to sink slowly, bow first, but continued to fight
desperately for the forty minutes that elapsed after her doom was
sealed, while we were engaged with both the _Cumberland_ and the
_Congress_, being right between them.

We had left our cast-iron beak in the side of the _Cumberland_. Like the
wasp, we could sting but once, leaving it in the wound.

Our smoke-stack was riddled, our flag was shot down several times, and
was finally secured to a rent in the stack. On our gun-deck the men were
fighting like demons. There was no thought or time for the wounded and
dying as they tugged away at their guns, training and sighting their
pieces while the orders rang out, "Sponge, load, fire!"

"The muzzle of our gun has been shot away," cried one of the gunners.

"No matter, keep on loading and firing--do the best you can with it,"
replied Lieutenant Jones.

"Keep away from the side ports, don't lean against the shield, look out
for the sharpshooters," rang the warnings. Some of our men who failed to
heed them and leaned against the shield were stunned and carried below,
bleeding at the ears. All were full of courage and worked with a will;
they were so begrimed with powder that they looked like negroes.

"Pass along the cartridges."