“On the cables; safe as wood, iron, and water can keep them—though Katherine has had her head up three times to——”
A summons from the Pilot drew Griffith away; and the young officers were compelled to forget their individual feelings, in the pressing duties of their stations. The ship which the American frigate had now to oppose was a vessel of near her own size and equipage; and when Griffith looked at her again, he perceived that she had made her preparations to assert her equality in manful fight.
Her sails had been gradually reduced to the usual quantity, and, by certain movements on her decks the lieutenant and his constant attendant, the Pilot, well understood that she only wanted to lessen her distance a few hundred yards to begin the action.
“Now spread everything,” whispered the stranger.
Griffith applied the trumpet to his mouth, and shouted in a voice that was carried even to his enemy: “Let fall-out with your booms—sheet home—hoist away of everything!”
The inspiring cry was answered by a universal bustle; fifty men flew out on the dizzy heights of the different spars, while broad sheets of canvas rose as suddenly along the masts as if some mighty bird were spreading its wings. The Englishman instantly perceived his mistake, and he answered the artifice by a roar of artillery. Griffith watched the effects of the broadside with an absorbing interest, as the shot whistled above his head; but when he perceived his masts untouched, and the few unimportant ropes only that were cut, he replied to the uproar with a burst of pleasure. A few men were, however, seen clinging with wild frenzy to the cordage, dropping from rope to rope like wounded birds fluttering through a tree, until they fell heavily into the ocean, the sullen ship sweeping by them in cold indifference. At the next instant the spars and masts of their enemy exhibited a display of men similar to their own, when Griffith again placed the trumpet to his mouth, and shouted aloud:
“Give it to them; drive them from their yards, boys; scatter them with your grape—unreeve their rigging!”
The crew of the American wanted but little encouragement to enter on this experiment with hearty good will, and the close of his cheering words were uttered amid the deafening roar of his own cannon. The Pilot had, however, mistaken the skill and readiness of their foe; for, notwithstanding the disadvantageous circumstances under which the Englishman increased his sail, the duty was steadily and dexterously performed.
The two ships were now running rapidly on parallel lines, hurling at each other their instruments of destruction with furious industry, and with severe and certain loss to both, though with no manifest advantage in favor of either. Both Griffith and the Pilot witnessed with deep concern this unexpected defeat of their hopes; for they could not conceal from themselves that each moment lessened their velocity through the water, as the shot of their enemy stripped the canvas from the yards, or dashed aside the lighter spars in their terrible progress.
“We find our equal here!” said Griffith to the stranger. “The ninety is heaving up again like a mountain; and if we continue to shorten sail at this rate, she will soon be down upon us!”