"We're sinking! we're sinking! Four feet of water in the hold!"
The gunner and his mates, apparently equally terrified, came running from the magazines as they caught the contagion of the moment. They sprang to the gun-deck and thence to the spar-deck, repeating the carpenter's cry, "We're sinking! we're sinking! Quarter! Quarter!"
"We must release the prisoners!" cried the master-at-arms, turning toward the little officer.
"Not while I live!" said Payne, resolutely, all his courage coming back to him in a moment.
"The ship is sinking; the battle is lost; make way!" returned the burly master-at-arms, springing toward the hatchway.
"Back!" cried the midshipman, fiercely, pointing his musket at him; the boy's blood was up now. "Here they stay, and here we stay! The orders of the captain--"
He never finished his words; a grape-shot struck him fair in the forehead. The master-at-arms tore open the hatch-cover.
"On deck!" he cried; "the ship is sinking!"
In panic terror, crowding and trampling upon each other like a mob of wild beasts, the maddened prisoners scrambled up the hatchway, and, yelling like animals, ran pell-mell for the gun-deck. The body of the brave midshipman was spurned, crushed, and broken beneath their feet as they ran.