her timbers creaking, snapping, quivering, like one being beaten to
death, his bones cracking, his muscles pulping under heavy blows.
We were above water-line there in the cockpit; we could feel her
flinch and stagger. On her side there came suddenly a crushing
blow, as if some great hammer, swung far in the sky, had come down
upon her. I could hear the split and break of heavy timbers; I
could see splinters flying over me in a rush of smoke, and the legs
of a man go bumping on the beams above. Then came another crash of
timbers on the port side. I leaped off the table and ran, limping,
to the deck, I do not know why; I was driven by some quick and
irresistible impulse. I was near out of my head, anyway, with the
rage of battle in me and no chance to fight. Well, suddenly, I
found myself stumbling, with drawn sabre, over heaps of the hurt
and dead there on our reeking deck. It was a horrible place:
everything tipped over, man and gun and mast and bulwark. The air
was full of smoke, but near me I could see a topsail of the enemy.
Balls were now plunging in the water alongside, the spray drenching
our deck. Some poor man lying low among the dead caught me by the
boot-leg with an appealing gesture. I took hold of his collar,
dragging him to the cockpit. The surgeon had just finished with
D'ri. His arm was now in sling and bandages. He was lying on his
back, the good arm over his face. There was a lull in the
cannonading. I went quickly to his side.

"How are you feeling?" I asked, giving his hand a good grip.

"Nuthin' t' brag uv," he answered. "Never see nobody git hell rose
with 'em s' quick es we did--never."

Just then we heard the voice of Perry. He stood on the stairs