Part 31 (1/2)
”This is the American Continental s.h.i.+p, Randolph, Captain Seymour,”
cried the latter, through the trumpet, in a voice heard in every part of the s.h.i.+p of the line.
At least two hearts in the Yarmouth were powerfully affected by that announcement. Katharine's leaped within her bosom at the sound of her lover's voice, and beat madly while she revelled in thought in his proximity; and then as she noticed again the fearful odds with which he was apparently about to contend, her heart sank into the depths once more. In one second she thrilled with pride, quivered with love, trembled with despair. He was there--he was hers--he would be killed!
She gripped the rail hard and clenched her teeth to keep from screaming aloud his name, while her gaze strained out upon his handsome figure.
Pride, love, death,--an epitome of human life in that fleeting moment,--all were hers!
On the main-deck of the frigate the name carried consternation to Lieutenant Lord Desborough. So Seymour was alive again! Was that the end of my lord's chance? No. Joy! The rebel was under the guns of the battle-s.h.i.+p! Never, vowed the lieutenant, should guns be better served than those under his command. Unless the man surrendered, he was doomed. So, he spoke eagerly to his men, bidding them take good aim and waste no shot, never doubting the inevitable issue. These thoughts took but a moment, however. Beauchamp, who had done the talking, now stepped aft to Captain Vincent's side, and replied to Seymour's hail by calling out,--
”Do you strike, sir?”
”Yes, yes, of course; that's what we came down here for. We'll strike fast enough,” was the answer.
A broad smile lighted up Captain Vincent's face; he turned to the colonel, laughing, and said with a scarcely veiled sneer,--
”I told you they were not up to it. The cad! he might have fired one shot at least for the honor of his flag, don't you see?”
The colonel with a sinking heart could not see at all. Cowardice in Seymour, in any officer, was a thing he could not understand. The world turned black before Katharine. What! strike without a blow! Was this her hero? Rather death than a coward! In spite of her faith in her lover, as she heard what appeared to be a pusillanimous offer of surrender, Desborough's chances took a sudden bound upward, while that gentleman cursed the cowardice of his enemy and rival, which would deprive him of a pleasing opportunity of blowing him out of the water.
Most of the men at the different guns relaxed their eager watchfulness, while sneers and jeers at the ”Yankee” went up on all sides.
”Heave to, then,” continued Beauchamp, peremptorily and with much disgust, ”and send a boat aboard!”
”Ay, ay, sir!”
Oh, it was true, then; he was going to surrender tamely without--
”Stand by!” there was a note of preparation in the words in spite of Seymour's effort to give them the ordinary intonation of a commonplace order,--a note which had so much meaning to Katharine's sensitive ear that her heart stopped its beating for a moment as she waited for the next word. It came with a roar of defiance. ”Back the maintopsail!”
But the braces were kept fast and the unexpected happened. In an instant sheets of flame shot out from the muzzles of the black guns of the Randolph, which were immediately wreathed and shrouded in clouds of smoke. At the moment of command Seymour had quickly ordered the helm s.h.i.+fted suddenly, and the Randolph had swung round so that she lay at a broad angle off the quarter of the Yarmouth. The thunderous roar of the heavy guns at short range was immediately followed by the cras.h.i.+ng of timber, as the heavy shot took deadly effect, amid the cheers and yells and curses and groans and shrieks of the wounded and startled men on the liner, while three hearty cheers rang out from the Randolph.
The advantage of the first blow in the grim game, the unequal combat, was with the little one.
”How now, captain!” shouted the colonel, in high exultation. ”Won't fight, eh! What do you call this?”
”Fire! fire! Let him have it, men, and be d.a.m.ned to you! The man 's a hero; 't was cleverly done,” roared the captain, excitedly. ”I retract. Give it to him, boys! Give it to the impudent rebel!” he roared.
Katharine, forgot by every one in the breathless excitement of the past few moments, bowed her head on her hands on the rail, and breathed a prayer of thankfulness, oblivious of everything but that her lover had proved himself worthy the devotion her heart so ungrudgingly extended him. There was great confusion on board the Yarmouth from this sudden and unexpected discharge, which, delivered at short range, had done no little execution on the crowded s.h.i.+p; but the officers rallied their men speedily with cool words of encouragement.
”Steady, men, steady.”
”Give it back to them.”
”Look sharp now.”
”Aim! Fire!”
And the forty-odd heavy guns roared out in answer to the determined attack. The effect of such a broadside at close range would have been frightful, had not the Randolph drawn so far ahead, and her course been so changed, that a large part of it pa.s.sed harmlessly astern of her.
One gun, however, found its target, and that was one aimed and fired by the hand of Lord Desborough himself: a heavy shot, a thirty-two, from one of the ma.s.sive lower-deck guns of the Yarmouth, which the pleasant weather permitted them to use effectively, came through one of the after gun-ports of the Randolph, and swept away the line of men on the port side of the gun. Some of the other shot did slight damage also among the spars and gear, and several of the crew were killed or wounded in different parts of the s.h.i.+p; but the Randolph was practically unharmed, and standing boldly down to cross the stern of the Yarmouth to rake her. But the English captain was a seaman, every inch of him, and his s.h.i.+p could not have been better handled; divining his bold little antagonist's purpose, the Yarmouth's helm was put up at once, and in the smoke she fell off and came before the wind almost as rapidly as did the Randolph, her promptness frustrating the endeavor, as Seymour was only able to make an ineffectual effort to rake her, as she flew round on her heels. The starboard battery of the Yarmouth had been manned as she fell off, and the port battery of the Randolph was rapidly reloaded again. The manoeuvre had given the Englishmen the weather-gage once more, the two s.h.i.+ps now having the wind on the port quarter. The two batteries were discharged simultaneously, and now began a running fight of near an hour's duration.
Seymour was everywhere. Up and down the deck he walked, helping and sustaining his men, building up new gun's crews out of the shattered remains of decimated groups of men, lending a hand himself on a tackle on occasion; cool, calm, unwearied, unremitting, determined, he desperately fought his s.h.i.+p as few vessels were ever fought before or since, imbuing, by his presence and example and word, his men with his own unquailing spirit, until they died as uncomplainingly and as n.o.bly as did those prototypes of heroes,--another three hundred in the pa.s.s at Thermopylae!