“Landais! Was ever another such a villain out of hell!”
The villain Landais makes off. There is no time for maledictions; besides, a court-martial will come later for that miscreant. Just now Captain Pearson, with his Serapis, claims the attention of Commodore Paul Jones.
The tackle takes the strain; the lashings, and that fortunate starboard anchor of the Serapis, hold the ships together. Captain Pearson sees the peril, and the way to free himself.
“Cut away that sta’board anchor!” he cries. Then, as a seaman armed with a hatchet springs forward, he continues: “The ring-stopper, man! Cut the shank-painter and the ring-stopper; let the anchor go!”
Commodore Paul Jones snatches a firelock from one of the agitated French marines. Steadying himself against a backstay, he raises the weapon to his shoulder and fires. The ball goes crashing through the seaman’s head as he raises his hatchet to cut free the anchor. Another leaps forward and grasps the hatchet. Seizing a second firelock, Commodore Paul Jones stretches him across the anchor’s shank, where he lies clutching and groaning and bleeding his life away. As the second man goes down, those nearest fall back. That fatal starboard anchor is a death-trap; they want none of it! Commodore Paul Jones, alert as a wildcat and as bent for blood, keeps grim watch, firelock in fist, at the backstay.
“I turned those hitches with my own hands,” says he; “and I’ll shoot down any Englishman who meddles with them.”
The French marines, despite the hardy example of Commodore Paul Jones, are in a panic. Their Captain Cammillard is wounded, and has retired below. Now their two lieutenants are gone. Besides, of the more than one hundred to go into the fight, no more than twenty-five remain. These, nerve-shattered and deeming all as lost, are fallen into disorder and dismay. The centuries have taught them to fear these sullen English. The lesson has come down to them in the blood of their fathers who fought at Crécy, Poitiers, Blenheim, Ramillies, and Malplaquet that these bulldog islanders are unconquerable! Panic grasps them at the moment of all moments when Commodore Paul Jones requires them most.
Seeing them thus shaken and beaten in their hearts, Commodore Paul Jones—who knows Frenchmen in their impulses as he knows his own face in a glass—adopts the theatrical. He rushes into their midst, thundering:
“Courage, my friends! What a day for France is this! We have these dogs of English at our mercy! Courage but a little while, my friends, and the day is ours! Oh, what a day for France!” As adding éclat to that day for France, Commodore Paul Jones snatches a third firelock from the nearest marine, and shoots down a third Briton who, hatchet upraised, is rushing upon that detaining anchor. Following this exploit, he wheels again upon those wavering marines, and by way of raising their spirits pours forth in French such a cataract of curses upon all Englishmen and English things that it fairly exhausts the imagination of his hearers to keep abreast of it.
Pierre Gerard, the little Breton sailor who, with Jack Downes, acts as orderly to Commodore Paul Jones, is swept off his feet in admiration of his young commander’s fire and profane fluency. Little Pierre takes fire in his turn.