A few moments later a powder-blackened, blood-stained, white-faced, desperate little figure appeared out of the smoke before the captain.
"McCollin, you here!" he cried sternly, "why are you not with your battery, sir?"
"I have to report, sir," said the boy, grasping the rail with one hand to keep from falling, while he saluted with the other, "that two of the berth-deck guns blew up, sir, and the other was dismounted. Have you any orders for me, sir?"
"Too bad!" cried Jones. "Orders!--but you are wounded!"
At this moment a round shot struck the lad fair in the chest. With his hand still at salute he was whirled across the deck and thrown against the taffrail, a broken mass of what had been humanity.
"Good Heaven!" exclaimed the captain, staring and almost losing his iron nerve at this double shock,--the loss of the battery and the death of the midshipman. "Poor lad! A hero!"
The ships were nearer now; the rifles of the Frenchmen were cracking and the fire from the great guns was continuous. The Richard had drawn well ahead; and fearful that the Serapis would cross his stern and rake, Jones now shivered his headsails, threw his after-sails aback, checked the way of his own ship, and the Serapis, firing madly into the smoke, drew ahead of the Richard. Jones then put his helm up to try to cross her stern and rake. The quick handling of the English ship frustrated this plan. The bow of the Richard struck the port quarter of the Serapis. The two ships hung together a moment, boarders were called on both sides; but before they could be used, the two ships drifted apart and formed a line ahead, with not a single gun bearing on either ship. The roar of the guns gradually subsided and even the crack of the small arms died away. The smoke drifted slowly off to leeward.
CHAPTER XX
The battle had been maintained with the utmost fury for nearly three quarters of an hour, and both ships had sustained severe injuries, the Richard being in much the worse condition. The heavy shot from the long eighteens of the Serapis had played havoc with her. Pearson naturally thought that it was about time for Jones to surrender, though the hour when Jones thought it time to surrender would never strike. The sudden silence which had fallen upon the conflict was broken by a voice from the British ship. In high interrogation it rang over the waters in the moonlight.