also firing. D'ri leaned over, shouting in my ear.

"Don't like th' way they 're whalin' uv us," he said, his cheeks
red with anger.

"Nor I," was my answer.

"Don't like t' stan' here an' dew nuthin' but git licked," he went
on. "'T ain' no way nat'ral."

Perry came hurrying forward.

"Fire!" he commanded, with a quick gesture, and we began to warm up
our big twenty-pounder there in the bow. But the deadly scuds of
iron kept flying over and upon our deck, bursting into awful
showers of bolt and chain and spike and hammerheads. We saw
shortly that our brig was badly out of gear. She began to drift to
leeward, and being unable to aim at the enemy, we could make no use
of the bow gun. Every brace and bowline cut away, her canvas torn
to rags, her hull shot through, and half her men dead or wounded,
she was, indeed, a sorry sight. The _Niagara_ went by on the safe
side of us, heedless of our plight. Perry stood near, cursing as
he looked off at her. Two of my gunners had been hurt by bursting
canister. D'ri and I picked them up, and made for the cockpit.
D'ri's man kept howling and kicking. As we hurried over the bloody
deck, there came a mighty crash beside us and a burst of old iron
that tumbled me to my knees.

A cloud of smoke covered us. I felt the man I bore struggle and
then go limp in my arms; I felt my knees getting warm and wet. The