"The colours! the colours!" he cried. "Take the ensign aloft, some one!"
Jamie, who was bending over him, heard and understood. He seized the ensign, tattered and torn as it was, and tore it away. The next moment he sprang into the mizzen shrouds, for that was the only mast remaining. Amid a shower of bullets from the French sharpshooters, he reached the crosstrees. As he reached the top-gallant yard a shaft of pain seemed to grip his left shoulder; still, up he went, and in another moment he had made fast the colours above the mizzen-royal yard.
A moment only he stayed there--to wave his hat in defiance at the enemy, whose bullets still whistled around him. This daring act was not lost upon a gallant foe. The French captain ordered his men to cease firing at ce brave fils, and a cheer even broke from the cruiser's deck as he began to descend.
It was with difficulty that he came down from that perilous post, for his left arm was useless owing to the bullet wound in his shoulder, from which the blood had been flowing freely. Everything about was now becoming blurred and indistinct.
When at last he reached the deck the captain, supported by Jack and the second mate, was breathing with great difficulty, but he beckoned Jamie to him. Smiling faintly, and holding out his hand, which the lad grasped, he was only able to whisper--
"Well done! We'll go down with colours flying!"
Then he raised his eyes, to look once more at that tattered ensign, floating bravely at the mizzen, and even while he gazed at it, still holding the lad's hand, his eyes became fixed in death, and that torn flag was the last thing that he saw on this side.
Thus died a brave sailor, and an English gentleman, whose courage and fidelity had perhaps passed unnoticed but for this brief record. And they laid him gently against the foot of the broken main-mast.
"Why, what's the matter, Jamie? You're wounded, too!" exclaimed Jack, one of the few still aboard who remained unwounded.
As Jamie looked at the dead captain the mists swam before his eyes, and he reeled and fell beside his leader, his idol and example, who had died at the post of duty for his ship, and the honour of his country.