While he was making off, a gunner on the Richard, thinking the ship was sinking, called loudly for quarter. No sooner were the words out of his mouth than Paul Jones sprang forward and felled him with the butt end of his pistol.
"Do you want quarter?" called Captain Pearson.
"No," roared Paul Jones; "you are the one to ask that!" And he purposely sent a pistol shot whistling close to the British captain's ears.
As if to make matters worse at this trying moment, the master-at-arms on the Richard, also thinking the ship sinking, opened the hatches and released nearly two hundred British prisoners, taken from prizes, who began to swarm on deck in the greatest confusion!
It was a moment to try the resourcefulness of the quickest intellect. Paul Jones hesitated just a moment, then he thundered at the prisoners to man the pumps or he would fill them full of lead. They obeyed like dumb-driven sheep. As the water in the hold of the sinking ship began to pour over her bulwarks into the sea again, the men on the Richard resumed the battle with new vigor.
Paul Jones had given orders to drop hand-grenades from the rigging down into the hold of the Serapis, through her main hatchway, which was open. By this same means the enemy had been set afire at various times before. Now, at an opportune moment, a hand-grenade fell among a pile of cartridges strung out on the deck of the Serapis. A terrific explosion occurred, killing many of her men.
It was an opportunity too good to let go. With a shout, the dashing John Mayrant, cleared the bulwarks of the enemy ship at the head of a yelling throng of Americans and French, and the next moment a terrific hand-to-hand struggle with cutlass and pistol was being waged.
