The breeze was so light that the vessels had approached each other very slowly. When within pistol-shot, and abreast, with bow to bow, the Serapis hailed the Richard with the question:
“What ship is that?”
The answer came back, “What is it you say?”
Again the shout came from the Serapis, “What ship is that? Answer immediately, or I shall fire into you.”
Simultaneously both vessels opened their broadsides. The flash glared upon the spectators like lightning from the cloud. Then came the thunder peal. The storm of human passion, more dreadful than any storm which ever wrecked the skies, had begun. The iron hail tore through both of the ships, crashing the timbers, scattering death-dealing splinters in all directions, and strewing the decks with the mangled bodies of the dying and the dead. At this first discharge two of the eighteen-pounders of the Richard burst, killing almost every man who served them, and so blowing up the deck and creating such havoc as to render the remaining four useless.
Thus Captain Jones’s battery of six eighteen-pounders was rendered entirely useless, while his adversary had twenty eighteen-pounders to hurl destruction upon the Richard. The battle was continued with unremitting fury. Broadside followed broadside in such swift succession that there was a continuous flash and a continuous roar.
It was a wondrous spectacle presented to the spectators on land. Both ships were enveloped in such a cloud of smoke as to be quite invisible. It seemed as though a thunder-cloud, fraught with the most dreadful tempests, had descended upon the ocean, and that a supernatural strife was raging there between unseen spirits of darkness, who hurled bolts at each other which illumined the ocean, and shook the hills. All who witnessed the terrific scene were overwhelmed with emotions of awe and dread. This is indeed a fallen world. Through all the ages, on the ocean and on the land, man has been combining all the energies he could wield for the destruction of his brother man.
Very slowly this war cloud moved along, the manœuvres of both vessels being entirely concealed from those on the shore. Each was constantly endeavoring to cross each other’s track, that thus the ship of its opponent might be raked by a broadside which would sweep from the bows to the stern. But several of the braces of the Richard were shot away; she would not readily mind the helm, and the bowsprit of the Serapis was thrust across the stern of the Richard, near the mizzen-mast.
Captain Jones grasped the bowsprit with his grappling irons, and made the ships fast. The stern of the Serapis swung round to the bows of the Richard. Thus the ships were brought square alongside of each other. Their yards were all entangled. The muzzles of their guns often touched. In the meantime the gunners were pouring into each other their awful broadsides, creating destruction which was truly appalling. Several eighteen-pound shots had pierced the Richard at the water’s edge, and the water was rushing in torrents through the openings.
