“But we do!” cried Paul Pringle. “And right glad we are to serve him. Hurrah, boys, for King George and Old England! Hurrah! hurrah!”
Three hearty cheers burst from the throats of the British tars. Scarcely had they ceased when the French Captain, who was still standing in the gangway, was seen to hold aloft in his hand a bonnet rouge, the red cap of liberty, and briefly to address his crew in terms of considerable animation. “Vive la Nation!” he exclaimed. “Vive la République!” answered the crew.
The French Captain, having finished his speech, handed the red cap to one of the seamen, who ran with it up the rigging and screwed it on to the masthead, where it was evident that a hole was prepared to receive the screw. The marines might easily have picked him off; but no one even thought of attempting to injure the brave fellow.
The Ruby was now well up with her opponent, and the two Captains, taking off their hats, made the politest of bows to each other, the Frenchman, however, beating the English Captain in the vehemence of his flourish. Both then returned to the quarterdeck. The moment to begin the fight had arrived. Captain Garland, who had kept his hat in his hand, raised it to his head. Every eye was on him. All knew the signal he had promised to give. For an instant not a sound was heard; and then there burst forth the loud continued roar of the broadsides of the two frigates as gun after gun of the Ruby, beginning at the foremost, was brought to bear on her antagonist, responded to by the after-guns of the Frenchman. And now the two frigates ran on before the wind, so close together that the combatants could see their opponents’ faces, pouring their shot into each other’s sides. Fast as the British seamen could run in their guns, they loaded, and, straining every muscle, they were rapidly run out again and fired. While round-shot and grapeshot and canister were sent rattling in through the enemy’s ports and across her decks, about her rigging, or tearing open her sides, she gallantly returned the compliment with much the same coin. Many of the bold seamen on board the Ruby were cut down.
A shot struck two men working the gun nearest to where Gipples was sitting on his powder tub in terror unspeakable, not knowing what moment he might be hit. On came the mangled forms of the poor fellows, writhing in their dying agonies, directly against him. He and his tub were upset, and he was sent, covered with their blood, sprawling on the deck.
“Oh, I’m killed! I’m killed!” he shrieked out, and, overcome with terror, did not attempt to rise.
Two of the idlers, whose duty it was to carry the wounded below and throw the dead overboard,—the common custom in those days of disposing of them,—hearing him shriek out, thought that he had also been killed. Having disposed of the first two men who really were dead, they lifted him up and were about to throw him overboard, when, discovering how he was to be treated, he groaned out, “Oh, I ain’t dead yet—take me below.” The men having been ordered to take all the wounded to the cockpit, immediately carried him below, and, placing him on the surgeon’s table, one of them said:
“Here’s a poor fellow, gentlemen, as seems very bad; but I don’t know whether he wants an arm or a leg cut off most.”
“I hope that he may escape without losing either,” said the surgeon, lifting up Gipples and preparing to strip him to examine his wound. “Where are you hit, my man?”
“Oh, oh, sir! all over, sir!” answered Gregory.