A solitary gun was all they could bring to bear on the
Americans; but this, loaded with cannister, was fired so near as to send
its glaring flame into the very faces of their enemies. The struggling
colonel, who was already sinking beneath the arm of his foe, felt the
rough grasp loosen from his throat at the flash, and the two combatants
sunk powerless on their knees facing each other.
"How, now, brother!" exclaimed Boltrope, with a smile of grim
fierceness; "some of that grist has gone to your mill, ha!"
No answer could, however, be given before the yielding forms of both
fell to the deck, where they lay helpless, amid the din of the battle
and the wild confusion of the eager combatants.
Notwithstanding the furious struggle they witnessed, the elements did
not cease their functions; and, urged by the breeze, and lifted
irresistibly on a wave, the American ship was forced through the water
still further across the bows of her enemy. The idle fastenings of hemp
and iron were snapped asunder like strings of tow, and Griffith saw his
own ship borne away from the Englishman at the instant that the bowsprit
of the latter was torn from its lashings, and tumbled into the sea,
followed by spar after spar, until nothing of all her proud tackling was
remaining, but the few parted and useless ropes that were left dangling
along the stumps of her lower masts. As his own stately vessel moved
from the confusion she had caused, and left the dense cloud of smoke in
which her helpless antagonist lay, the eye of the young man glanced
anxiously toward the horizon, where he now remembered he had more foes
to contend against.
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