“You’re firing into a friend,” shouted fifty voices in a breath.
“What does he mean?” said Dale, “surely he can see that we haven’t yellow sides like the foe—shew him the signal of recognition.”
The three lanterns, in a line, were instantly let down on the off side, when the Alliance ceased firing.
“Lay the enemy aboard,” shouted the officer of the deck.
No answer was returned, and our consort kept coolly on her course.
“Did you hear the order?” thundered the now exasperated commodore; “lay the enemy aboard, I say.”
“Ay, ay, sir.”
“Perdition take the cowardly traitor,” muttered Paul Jones betwixt his teeth, as he turned from the recreant ship.
I watched, however, the course of the frigate until she had hauled off some distance, and was almost lost in the shadowy gloom to larboard, when suddenly a cry of “fire” startled me, and turning hastily around I saw that the lower deck was a mass of flame. The confusion, for a moment, baffled description. Men were hastening to and fro for buckets; some shouted one thing and some another; a general consternation seemed to be spreading among the crew, and all discipline, for an interval of several minutes, was lost. To add to the disorder, the ship was perceptibly settling, and a rumour spread through the decks that we would sink in less than ten minutes. While everything was still plunged in chaos, the Alliance again appeared, edging down on our larboard beam, and hauling up athwart our bows, she poured in a fire of grape, which took effect on our crowded forecastle, instead of on the enemy—if indeed it was ever intended for the foe—and killed several of our own men. Never shall I forget the fate of one of our best officers—poor Creswell! who fell a victim to this discharge. I held his head in his last moments, and with his eye already glazing in death, and his tongue faltering in its accents, he prayed God to forgive his countrymen for his wanton murder. My blood boiled with indignation against the scoundrel who commanded the gallant Alliance, and, at that moment, I would have given ten years of my life to have crossed swords with Landais.
But I had no time for thoughts of revenge. Louder and louder swelled the cry ‘that we were sinking,’ and, as I laid the dead man’s head on the deck, I saw the carpenter hurry to the commodore with consternation depicted on every feature of his face. Instantly the cry arose, that he had sounded the pump-wells, and that all was over. The wildest confusion followed. More than a hundred of our prisoners were let loose by the master-at-arms, who imagined that all was over, and in a few minutes the deck was crowded with them. Had they then known their power, we should have been overpowered with ease, and, as I looked on their fierce faces, I trembled for the first time. To add to all, the gunner rushed, at this crisis, on deck, and not perceiving the commodore or the lieutenant, would have hauled down our flag, and failing in this—for the staff had been shot away—he cried out for quarter. Another second would have decided our fate, but springing aft, I shouted that we had not surrendered, and, at the same instant, the commodore re-appeared, and confirming my assertion, rallied his men hastily around him, and led them to repel a party of boarders, which taking advantage of our disorder, was, at this moment, clustering on our gunwale. The conflict here was short, but decisive. Fired anew by the words and example of their commodore, our brave fellows redeemed their momentary vacillation, and, aided by the men in the tops, hurled back the foemen, as if an avalanche had struck them, on the decks of their frigate. Meantime, the first lieutenant, availing himself of the fears of the prisoners, had mustered them at the pumps, and, arming another party with buckets, had succeeded in extinguishing the fire. The re-action, on the part of our crew, was decisive. The men now fought with a fury that nothing could suppress, for they knew over what a mine they hung, and that victory must be soon theirs, or they would lose all. Several guns were dragged over to the side against the foe, and the fire of our battery re-commenced with treble vigor. The top-men hailed down grenades on the frigate’s decks, and deafening volleys of musketry incessantly rattled from our forecastle. The enemy could hold out no longer. A man darted up the frigate’s hatchway, dashed aft, and the next moment the cross of Britain was at our feet. A cheer, that shook the very welkin, and which, dying away, was renewed and renewed again, burst from our brave tars, and rolling down to leeward announced our hard bought victory.