“Billy killed! Oh dear, oh dear! Den kill me!” cried poor Sam, trembling all over.
“But he isn’t killed, and we don’t want to kill you,” answered Paul. “Get up, though, or we shall fancy you’re in a fright or drunk.”
“But I can’t get up—’deed I can’t!” cried Sam. “Leg shot away. I no walkee.”
On hearing this, Paul and his companions lifted up the poor black, and sure enough a leg, but it was his wooden one, was shattered to fragments, and the stump to which it was secured considerably bruised. It then came out that Sam had really attempted to follow little True Blue when he ran on deck, but that, just as he was getting up the hatchway on the lower-deck, a shot had come through a port, and, striking his wooden leg, had tumbled him down again, when by some means or other he had rolled down into the hold, and there, suffering from pain and fear, he had ever since lain, unwilling and unable to rise, dreading lest harm should happen to his little charge, and fearing not a little, should such have been the case, the consequences to himself. He was half starved, too, for he had had nothing to eat all day, and was altogether in a very wretched plight. When, however, he was brought on deck, with some food put into his inside and the assistance of the carpenter, he was once more set on his legs. Many a day, however, passed before the sound of his once merry fiddle was heard on the forecastle of the Fame, for the crew loved their gallant commander too well to allow them to foot it as had been their constant custom during his lifetime.
Little rest had the crews of any of the ships that night after the battle. Not far from the Fame lay the Caesar, which had been so gallantly defended, now a prize to the Centaur. One of the lieutenants of the Centaur, with the boatswain and fifty of her men, were on board the prize, fully four hundred Frenchmen not having yet been removed.
Suddenly flames were seen to burst forth from the lower ports of the Caesar. How the fire originated no one could tell. In vain must have been the efforts of those on board to extinguish it. Boats put off from all the ships near to rescue the unfortunate people on board; but before they could reach her the fire had entered her magazine, and with a dreadful explosion she blew up, hurling every one on board to destruction. The English lieutenant and boatswain, with fifty men, and the four hundred Frenchmen remaining on board, all perished.
For this most important and gallant victory Sir George Rodney was created a peer of Great Britain, Sir Samuel Hood a peer of Ireland, and Admiral Drake and Commodore Affleck baronets of the United Kingdom.