“Ay, now he's our own!” cried the busy master, “and we will take an owner's liberties with him, and break him up—for by the eternal——”
“Peace, rude man,” said the Pilot, in a voice of solemn remonstrance; “at the next instant you may face your God; mock not his awful name!”
The master found time, before he threw himself from the spar on the deck of the frigate again, to cast a look of amazement at his companion, who, with a steady mien, but with an eye that lighted with a warrior's ardor, viewed the battle that raged around him, like one who marked its progress to control the result.
The sight of the Englishmen rushing onward with shouts and bitter menaces warmed the blood of Colonel Howard, who pressed to the side of the frigate, and encouraged his friends, by his gestures and voice, to come on.
“Away with ye, old croaker!” cried the master, seizing him by the collar; “away with ye to the hold, or I'll order you fired from a gun.”
“Down with your arms, rebellious dog!” shouted the colonel, carried beyond himself by the ardor of the fray; “down to the dust, and implore the mercy of your injured prince!”
Invigorated by a momentary glow, the veteran grappled with his brawny antagonist; but the issue of the short struggle was yet suspended, when the English, driven back by the fire of the marines, and the menacing front that Griffith with his boarders presented, retreated to the forecastle of their own ship, and attempted to return the deadly blows they were receiving, in their hull, from the cannon that Barnstable directed. A solitary gun was all they could bring to bear on the Americans; but this, loaded with cannister, was fired so near as to send its glaring flame into the very faces of their enemies. The struggling colonel, who was already sinking beneath the arm of his foe, felt the rough grasp loosen from his throat at the flash, and the two combatants sunk powerless on their knees facing each other.
“How, now, brother!” exclaimed Boltrope, with a smile of grim fierceness; “some of that grist has gone to your mill, ha!”
No answer could, however, be given before the yielding forms of both fell to the deck, where they lay helpless, amid the din of the battle and the wild confusion of the eager combatants.
Notwithstanding the furious struggle they witnessed, the elements did not cease their functions; and, urged by the breeze, and lifted irresistibly on a wave, the American ship was forced through the water still further across the bows of her enemy. The idle fastenings of hemp and iron were snapped asunder like strings of tow, and Griffith saw his own ship borne away from the Englishman at the instant that the bowsprit of the latter was torn from its lashings, and tumbled into the sea, followed by spar after spar, until nothing of all her proud tackling was remaining, but the few parted and useless ropes that were left dangling along the stumps of her lower masts. As his own stately vessel moved from the confusion she had caused, and left the dense cloud of smoke in which her helpless antagonist lay, the eye of the young man glanced anxiously toward the horizon, where he now remembered he had more foes to contend against.