“I have not yet begun to fight!”
There was something in this answer that gave renewed courage to the American seamen; they manned their pieces once more; a steady fire from the tops slackened the gunnery of the Serapis, perceptibly; then a sudden flare showed the latter to be on fire, and her gun crews rushed to extinguish the blaze.
In the meantime the Pallas had engaged the Countess of Scarborough, and after a brisk action had forced her to strike. The Alliance now advanced, and to the astonishment of all she poured a broadside into the Richard.
“She’s been taken by the British!” gasped Longsword.
“It’s that mad Frenchman, Landais,” cried Richard Dale, in a fury. “See, the signal is set,” pointing to the lights on the Richard’s side. “He cannot have mistaken us for the enemy.”
The Alliance managed to dismount some guns and do the Richard considerable other damage before she silenced her fire, and hauled off once more.
The fire from the Richard’s top had succeeded in clearing the Serapis above board; but her heavy guns on the lower deck were still pounding away in a most murderous fashion. The heavy lashings that Captain Jones had brought into use when the Richard’s bow touched the Serapis some time before were all that saved the former; had the Englishman managed to get free and been able to haul away, she could have sunk the American at her leisure.
Under these conditions the battle continued to rage; hour after hour passed and still the bulldog Briton and the dauntless Yankee grappled in their death struggle, the red flare of the guns blazing paths of fire along the still waters of the sea. The pumps were still at work and the prisoners labored in relays; but the Richard sank lower and still lower in the water. Captain Jones was pounding away with two guns at the masts of the Serapis thinking to cripple her in this way and then secure a position in which he could rake her with his main deck battery. As this was proceeding Longsword plucked Dale by the sleeve.
“Look there, on the main top.”
Dale glanced upward, and saw Ethan Carlyle crawling out upon the yard. He had a ship’s bucket filled to the top with hand grenades; from the spar of the Richard he crept to that of the Serapis; when he reached a position directly over the deck of the British ship he paused and slung his bucket to the spar by a hook.