“Sir,” said the man, touching his cap, “Mr. Dale says as how not another shot can be fired from the eighteen-pounders. They is cracked from breech to muzzle.”
“I knew it,” answered Paul Jones; “the instant the firing stopped, I knew it was impossible to fire another shot, for Dale would never have given it up as long as he could work his guns. Tell Mr. Dale I think the enemy will soon silence the smaller guns, and that if the ship should catch fire—”
“She’s a-fire, sir, in a dozen places—”
“Or should leak badly—”
“The water, sir, is pourin’ in by the hogshead through the holes in the hull—”
“To fight both the fire and the water, and to keep her afloat as long as possible; and as long as she floats she shall be fought.”
The men on deck heard these gallant words, and a rousing cheer rang out over the furious din of the cannonade.
Just at that moment a new enemy appeared. The Countess of Scarborough, that had been gradually drawing within gunshot, delayed by the wind, which had become light and baffling, now suddenly loomed up in the faint moonlight on the lee bow of the Bon Homme Richard, and made her presence known by pouring a raking broadside into the American ship. But seeing, through the shattered sides of the ship, the blaze and smoke which Dale and his men were fighting as stubbornly as Paul Jones was fighting the British, and noticing that nearly every gun on the Bon Homme Richard was silenced, the sloop of war drew off, to let, as it was mistakenly thought, the Serapis finish up the unequal fight. The Alliance lay off, out of gunshot, a picture of beauty in the pale splendor of the night, but apparently without any intention of taking part in the fight. The Countess of Scarborough turned her attention toward the cowardly ship, which finally began to return the cannonade the Countess of Scarborough opened upon her. The Pallas, though, as if stung by the conduct of her consort, steered for the Countess of Scarborough, and engaged her with great spirit.
De Chamillard had held the poop of the Bon Homme Richard with twenty marines, but after losing several of his men he was driven back step by step. Paul Jones watched the brave Frenchman; and if he felt agony at the defeat that threatened him on every hand he gave no sign of it, but said to De Chamillard, as he came up, grimed with powder, “See, the Pallas is making amends, like yourself, for the treachery of the Alliance.”
The slaughter on the decks of the Bon Homme Richard was frightful, and below she was both leaking and burning. Moreover, there were over a hundred prisoners on board, that might be liberated by the fire and the water. But Paul Jones had in young Dale a man like himself, and he felt sure that Dale was no more likely to lose heart than himself.