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- 5731
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- 2026-01-30T20:48:05.591Z
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- 5657
- text
- nearly forty wounded. This blow restored the chances of battle, before
in favor of the Serapis.
But the drooping spirits of the English were suddenly revived, by an
event which crowned the scene by an act on the part of one of the
consorts of the Richard, the incredible atrocity of which has induced
all humane minds to impute it rather to some incomprehensible mistake
than to the malignant madness of the perpetrator.
The cautious approach and retreat of a consort of the Serapis, the
Scarborough, before the moon rose, has already been mentioned. It is
now to be related how that, when the moon was more than an hour high, a
consort of the Richard, the Alliance, likewise approached and
retreated. This ship, commanded by a Frenchman, infamous in his own
navy, and obnoxious in the service to which he at present belonged;
this ship, foremost in insurgency to Paul hitherto, and which, for the
most part, had crept like a poltroon from the fray; the Alliance now
was at hand. Seeing her, Paul deemed the battle at an end. But to his
horror, the Alliance threw a broadside full into the stern of the
Richard, without touching the Serapis. Paul called to her, for God’s
sake to forbear destroying the Richard. The reply was, a second, a
third, a fourth broadside, striking the Richard ahead, astern, and
amidships. One of the volleys killed several men and one officer.
Meantime, like carpenters’ augers, and the sea-worm called Remora, the
guns of the Serapis were drilling away at the same doomed hull. After
performing her nameless exploit, the Alliance sailed away, and did no
more. She was like the great fire of London, breaking out on the heel
of the great Plague. By this time, the Richard had so many shot-holes
low down in her hull, that like a sieve she began to settle.
“Do you strike?” cried the English captain.
“I have not yet begun to fight,” howled sinking Paul.
This summons and response were whirled on eddies of smoke and flame.
Both vessels were now on fire. The men of either knew hardly which to
do; strive to destroy the enemy, or save themselves. In the midst of
this, one hundred human beings, hitherto invisible strangers, were
suddenly added to the rest. Five score English prisoners, till now
confined in the Richard’s hold, liberated in his consternation by the
master at arms, burst up the hatchways. One of them, the captain of a
letter of marque, captured by Paul, off the Scottish coast, crawled
through a port, as a burglar through a window, from the one ship to the
other, and reported affairs to the English captain.
While Paul and his lieutenants were confronting these prisoners, the
gunner, running up from below, and not perceiving his official
superiors, and deeming them dead, believing himself now left sole
surviving officer, ran to the tower of Pisa to haul down the colors.
But they were already shot down and trailing in the water astern, like
a sailor’s towing shirt. Seeing the gunner there, groping about in the
smoke, Israel asked what he wanted.
At this moment the gunner, rushing to the rail, shouted “Quarter!
quarter!” to the Serapis.
“I’ll quarter ye,” yelled Israel, smiting the gunner with the flat of
his cutlass.
“Do you strike?” now came from the Serapis.
“Aye, aye, aye!” involuntarily cried Israel, fetching the gunner a
shower of blows.
“Do you strike?” again was repeated from the Serapis; whose captain,
judging from the augmented confusion on board the Richard, owing to the
escape of the prisoners, and also influenced by the report made to him
by his late guest of the port-hole, doubted not that the enemy must
needs be about surrendering.
“Do you strike?”
“Aye!—I strike _back_” roared Paul, for the first time now hearing the
summons.
- title
- Chunk 8