- end_line
- 5791
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:05.591Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 5721
- text
- “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.
But judging this frantic response to come, like the others, from some
unauthorized source, the English captain directed his boarders to be
called, some of whom presently leaped on the Richard’s rail, but,
throwing out his tattooed arm at them, with a sabre at the end of it,
Paul showed them how boarders repelled boarders. The English retreated,
but not before they had been thinned out again, like spring radishes,
by the unfaltering fire from the Richard’s tops.
An officer of the Richard, seeing the mass of prisoners delirious with
sudden liberty and fright, pricked them with his sword to the pumps,
thus keeping the ship afloat by the very blunder which had promised to
have been fatal. The vessels now blazed so in the rigging that both
parties desisted from hostilities to subdue the common foe.
When some faint order was again restored upon the Richard her chances
of victory increased, while those of the English, driven under cover,
proportionably waned. Early in the contest, Paul, with his own hand,
had brought one of his largest guns to bear against the enemy’s
mainmast. That shot had hit. The mast now plainly tottered.
Nevertheless, it seemed as if, in this fight, neither party could be
victor. Mutual obliteration from the face of the waters seemed the only
natural sequel to hostilities like these. It is, therefore, honor to
him as a man, and not reproach to him as an officer, that, to stay such
carnage, Captain Pearson, of the Serapis, with his own hands hauled
down his colors. But just as an officer from the Richard swung himself
on board the Serapis, and accosted the English captain, the first
lieutenant of the Serapis came up from below inquiring whether the
Richard had struck, since her fire had ceased.
So equal was the conflict that, even after the surrender, it could be,
and was, a question to one of the warriors engaged (who had not
happened to see the English flag hauled down) whether the Serapis had
struck to the Richard, or the Richard to the Serapis. Nay, while the
Richard’s officer was still amicably conversing with the English
captain, a midshipman of the Richard, in act of following his superior
on board the surrendered vessel, was run through the thigh by a pike in
the hand of an ignorant boarder of the Serapis. While, equally
ignorant, the cannons below deck were still thundering away at the
nominal conqueror from the batteries of the nominally conquered ship.
But though the Serapis had submitted, there were two misanthropical
foes on board the Richard which would not so easily succumb—fire and
water. All night the victors were engaged in suppressing the flames.
Not until daylight were the flames got under; but though the pumps were
kept continually going, the water in the hold still gained. A few hours
after sunrise the Richard was deserted for the Serapis and the other
vessels of the squadron of Paul. About ten o’clock the Richard, gorged
with slaughter, wallowed heavily, gave a long roll, and blasted by
tornadoes of sulphur, slowly sunk, like Gomorrah, out of sight.
The loss of life in the two ships was about equal; one-half of the
total number of those engaged being either killed or wounded.
In view of this battle one may ask—What separates the enlightened man
from the savage? Is civilization a thing distinct, or is it an advanced
stage of barbarism?
- title
- Chunk 9