On the spar-deck things had gone better. Though De Chamillard and his marines had been driven from the poop by the fire of the English, the men in the tops had more than evened that reverse. As the two ships lay side by side, the interlocking yards made a convenient bridge from one to the other, over which a bold man might pass. It happened that some of the choicest spirits on the Richard were stationed in the maintop. Fanning, who had been busily engaged with small arms, saw his opportunity. As the little parties in the two tops exchanged volleys, the midshipman threw his men on the yard; and as the smoke cleared away, the astonished British saw the Americans rushing toward them.
The first and second men were shot down and fell to the deck of the Serapis; the third, a gigantic man, by a desperate leap gained a foothold in the top. Before he was cut down, Fanning and another had joined him over the futtock shrouds; two men took the defenders in the rear by way of the lubber's hole; the rest came swarming. The force of their rush carried everything before it. The English, unable to stand the irresistible onset, were shot down or thrown out of the top. No quarter was asked or given. The Americans, having effected this lodgement in the maintop of the Serapis, now turned their fire upon the fore and mizzen tops, and enabled boarding parties from their own ship to gain possession of all the upper works of the enemy.
It was at this moment that the gunner and the carpenter reached the deck, crying that the ship was sinking and proffering surrender. The gunner ran aft shrieking, "Quarter! Quarter!" intending to lower the flag. Jones, who had been superintending the working of the quarter-deck guns, which were without an officer since Mease, who had been fighting heroically, had been severely wounded, of course heard the noise, and turning about saw the gunner running for the flag. Fortunately the flag had been shot away; and as the gunner was seeking it, fumbling over the halliards in the darkness, Pearson, hearing the cries, called out again,--
"Do you ask for quarter?"
Jones had taken two long leaps across the deck to the side of the gunner. Seizing his discharged pistol, he brought the butt of it heavily down upon the forehead of the man, cracking his skull and silencing him forever.
"Never!" he shouted in reply to the Englishman.
"Then I will give none!" said Pearson,--an entirely superfluous remark, by the way.
It was at this juncture that the "Alliance" was seen coming down again as before. Jones had time but for one glance of apprehension when he heard the noise of the leaping prisoners below. He sprang to the main hatch.
"The prisoners have been released," cried De Weibert, meeting him; the Frenchman had been toiling like a hero on the gun-deck. "The battery is silenced, we have not a single gun to work, the ship is afire! We must yield!" he exclaimed.