CHAPTER XXIV
HOW THE SERAPIS STRUCK HER FLAG
John Paul Jones, a dark, slender figure, paced calmly to and fro upon his quarter-deck.
“You may fire, Mr. Dale,” he said composedly.
Dale passed the word; the gunners applied their matches and the whole broadside of the Richard hurled destruction at the grim Englishman. From that moment the night was ablaze; broadside answered broadside with echoing fury; the men at the guns, stripped to the waist, with hard set mouths and scowling brows, charged, rammed and fired like clockwork. Men standing behind screens, drenched with water, handed out charges of powder to boys who darted up and down the ladders like monkeys, passing the explosive to the guns.
Every man was belted with cutlass and pistol; stands of grape and round shot, and boarding-pikes stood about. Grappling irons and boarding nettings were ready for instant use in case the ships should touch. Aloft the yards of the Richard swarmed with marines, muskets in hand; another large body of the sea-soldiery were also upon the poop and forecastle. These were Frenchmen; they were under the command of a colonel and, for the most part, were good marksmen.
The rending thunder of the cannonade never halted for a moment. Ethan Carlyle and Longsword worked an after gun like furies; their bare bodies, in the light of the battle lanterns, were black with the grime of the guns; from beneath their sweat-matted shocks of hair their eyes glowed like coals.
The Countess of Scarborough at the beginning of the fight had not dared to fire into the Richard for fear of injuring the Serapis; but as the battle grew older she began to seek a position from which she might venture to take part.
Ethan noted this, for the moonlight showed them the ship’s actions; he said to Longsword,
“There goes the other one; hot work, Shamus.”
“The Pallas is going to meet her, faith,” cried the dragoon as that vessel suddenly darted into the blaze of the guns and made for the second Englishman.