commodore. But none went so far as to accuse the captain of the
'Alliance' of such supreme treachery as he was to show during the action.
Cowardice may have been in part responsible for his holding aloof from
the two duels in which the Richard and the Pallas engaged. But the fact
that he poured broadsides into the Richard, and into her off side, makes
it seem probable that his motive was to sink the commodore's ship, and so
get the credit of saving the day, to the detriment of the hero who won it
despite all disasters. To account for the cry that was raised when first
she attacked the Richard, it must be borne in mind that the crew of the
'Alliance' was largely composed of Englishmen. It was thought that these
had mutinied and taken her.




CHAPTER LII

HOW THE GARDENER'S SON FOUGHT THE "SERAPIS"

When I came on deck the next morning our yards were a-drip with a clammy
fog, and under it the sea was roughed by a southwest breeze. We were
standing to the northward before it. I remember reflecting as I paused
in the gangway that the day was Thursday, September the 23d, and that we
were near two months out of Groix with this tub of an Indiaman. In all
that time we had not so much as got a whiff of an English frigate, though
we had almost put a belt around the British Isles. Then straining my
eyes through the mist, I made out two white blurs of sails on our
starboard beam.

Honest Jack Pearce, one of the few good seamen we had aboard, was rubbing