“Look out for my signals, Mr. Lunt,” were Paul Jones’s last orders, “for I expect to fight this day.”
Every eye on the Bon Homme Richard was fixed on the ship that had glided so beautifully around the promontory. Within ten minutes another sail, and another, appeared in the wake of the large ship, all rounding the point. Paul Jones, in a passion of suppressed excitement, seized Dale by the arm. “Look!” he cried. “It is the Baltic fleet! It is not less than forty sail, and their convoy, I have heard, is the Serapis frigate, commanded by Captain Pearson, and the sloop of war Countess of Scarborough. Ah, Dale, well may your presentiment come true! This is our day to fight! Call the bugler, set the signal for a general chase, and prepare for action; and we will fight at close quarters.”
Dale fairly rushed off to give the necessary orders. The men sprang into the rigging with cheers, and set the fore and main sail. As soon as they were at quarters, the men, two by two, gave nine cheers for Commodore Paul Jones. Paul Jones, with sparkling eyes, took off his cap and waved it.
Just then Bill Green ran across Danny Dixon, who was hanging over the side, gazing at the stately ships as they came swiftly around the point, like a flock of huge swans.
“I say, boy,” said Bill, “you’d better be gittin’ that sawdust and sprinklin’ the deck, to keep your spirits up—’cause I see flunk in your eye.”
“Well, Mr. Green,” answered Danny, who had a long score of practical jokes and chaff to pay off, “I’ll be careful and throw a plenty o’ sawdust around the wheel to soak up your blood in case you is welterin’ in gore, and I’ll be proud to take your last messages to your afflicted widder—”
“Go along with you!” bawled Bill, who was not pleased with these grewsome suggestions. “I ain’t got no afflicted widder, nor no afflicted wife neither, you billy-be-hanged imp! I don’t see what boys is made for no-how, excep’ to be tormentin’ and aggerawatin’! Maybe you ain’t heerd, youngster, that the British Government has put a price on your head, and the man that carries you, livin’ or dead, aboard a British ship, gits a pile o’ money?”
“W’y, that’s very kind and complimentary of the Britishers,” answered Danny, with a knowing grin. “That’s what they done for Cap’n Paul Jones, and I’m mighty proud to be rated with him.”
“Jest wait,” answered Bill, “till these ’ere guns gits to barkin’ and the spars begins to fly ’round like straws when you’re threshin’, and I’m a-thinkin’ you won’t be as brave as the cap’n.”
“’Tain’t nobody as brave as the cap’n,” answered Danny stoutly, “but I ain’t a-goin’ to flunk, Mr. Green, and I’m a-goin’ to give you a extry handful o’ sawdust for to drink up your blood when I begins to lay it on the deck.”