Ranc was badly wounded but he led his men to a counter assault with courage born of desperation. Cutlasses crashed together, boarding-pikes smashed and hacked, and pistols growled and spattered in one discordant roar. Back went the Dutch sailors fighting savagely and bluntly with all the stubbornness of their natures, then back they pushed the followers of Jean Bart, while Ranc called to them:
“Drive these French curs into the sea!”
“JEAN BART LED HIS BOARDERS OVER THE SIDE OF THE DUTCH VESSEL.”
But now the other privateer had made fast, and her men came clambering over the rail, with cutlass, dirk, and pistols.
“We’re outnumbered,” Ranc shouted, his face showing extreme suffering. “Haul down the flag! Had Jean Bart been here alone I could have trounced him well.”
Thus reluctantly and sadly the flag of the Sherdam came down. But the French had paid well for their victory.
Jean Bart was badly wounded in the leg; his face was burned by the discharge of a gun, which went off—almost in his eyes—just as he leaped on board the Sherdam. Six of his men were killed and thirty-one were wounded, while the little privateer that had fastened to the other flank of the huge Sherdam, was a total wreck. So well, indeed, had the Dutch fighters plied their cannon as she approached, that she was shattered almost beyond repair. With great difficulty she was finally towed to shore.
Of course all France again rang with the fame of Jean Bart, while the crafty sea-dogs who had endeavored to capture the slippery privateersman were furious with envious rage. But Jean Bart hummed a little tune to himself, which ran,