The warrant officer in charge of the magazine stood at its locked door, a pistol in his hand, and when Dale and Ethan seized him roughly he said:
“There was nothing else to do but lock the door, sir. The news came that the ship was sinking and the quartermaster released all the prisoners so that they might have a chance for their lives. See, the deck below here is crowded with them.”
As Dale and Ethan looked they saw the truth of this; the gun deck was thronged with desperate looking men who greatly out-numbered the Richard’s crew, and they were huddling together, apparently for a rush to the main deck for an attempt to take the ship. The quick wit of Dale was equal to this new and novel danger. He leaped toward them and shouted in a voice that all could hear:
“Men, the ship is sinking!”
The faces of the great throng of released prisoners blanched; then Dale continued:
“You have one chance for your lives; to the pumps, or you are all dead men!”
With eager haste the British seamen sprang to obey; if they had known it, they could now have crawled through the ports of the Richard into the Serapis, for Captain Jones, by a masterly stroke of seamanship, had at length placed his vessel alongside the Englishman, and locked their yards together. But fate would have it that British brawn should keep the Richard afloat while her crew strove against their countrymen. As Ethan and Dale regained the main deck, the ammunition once more began to come through the hatches; but the guns were still silent.
All this time the Serapis had been pouring death into the huge, helpless hulk of the American. The Richard was a wreck—shattered, reeling and all but sinking. Her crew had deserted her main deck, her dead lay about in heaps. The moonlight, streaming down upon the scene showed the slight figure of John Paul Jones as he worked desperately at a dismounted gun, almost alone, but with a determination to win that only death could destroy. Captain Pearson, of the Serapis, astonished at the Richard’s silence, now shouted:
“Have you struck?”
Jones lifted his head and his answer rang proudly above the din of the battle.