Already were the white timbers stained crimson with the blood of my shipmates; but I was in such mental condition of excitement as neither to know nor care who had fallen.
I understood that Alec was as yet unhurt, because he worked by my side, cheering when a shot struck the enemy, and soothing with kindly word some poor fellow of ours who had been mangled by British iron.
That the Lawrence was speedily getting the worst of the fight could be told even by a lad like myself, and I felt a certain sense of satisfaction when Commodore Perry shouted through a speaking trumpet to the craft nearest, which chanced to be the Niagara:—
“Pass the word for all hands to make sail and bear down on Barclay. Lay him close alongside at all hazards!”
Then, even above the roar of the guns, I heard the order transmitted from one craft to the other, until it seemed that every sailing-master in the fleet must have heard it; but to my surprise the Niagara hauled off slightly, instead of obeying the commands.
To my eyes the engagement had ceased to be a battle, but was become a slaughter.
On every hand were dead, dying, or wounded men, and four times within twice as many minutes had the crew of our gun been so thinned out that old Silas was forced to call for assistance.
Then it was, just at the moment he urged one of the new men who had been sent to assist us, to stand bravely up to his work, that the old man’s hip was shattered by a grape-shot, and he fell like one dead across the breach of the gun.
“We must get him into the cockpit,” Alec said to me, speaking as calmly as if this was but an incident which we had been anticipating. “Take him by the head, and move quickly, else he will bleed to death before Dr. Parsons has a chance at him!”
Numbed with horror, I obeyed; and as we carried the old hero across the deck a stream of blood marked our way, making such a trail that it seemed as if his veins must have been emptied before we had traversed half the short distance.