The storm of iron hit us.  A heavy ball crashed into the after bulwarks, tearing them away and slamming over gun and carriage, that slid a space, grinding the gunners under it.  One end of a bowline whipped over us; a jib dropped; a brace fell crawling over my shoulders like a big snake; the foremast went into splinters a few feet above the deck, its top falling over, its canvas sagging in great folds.  It was all the work of a second.  That hasty flight of iron, coming out of the air, thick as a flock of pigeons, had gone through hull and rigging in a wink of the eye.  And a fine mess it had made.

Men lay scattered along the deck, bleeding, yelling, struggling.  There were two lying near us with blood spurting out of their necks.  One rose upon a knee, choking horribly, shaken with the last throes of his flooded heart, and reeled over.  The Scorpion of our fleet had got her guns in action; the little Ariel was 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 smoke rose; the tall, herculean back of D’ri was just ahead of me.  His sleeve had been ripped away from shoulder to elbow, and a spray of blood from his upper arm was flying back upon me.  His hat crown had been torn off, and there was a big rent in his trousers, but he kept going, I saw my man had been killed in my arms by a piece of chain, buried to its last link in his breast.  I was so confused by the shock of it all that I had not the sense to lay him down, but followed D’ri to the cockpit.  He stumbled on the stairs, falling heavily with his burden.  Then I dropped my poor gunner and helped them carry D’ri to a table, where they bade me lie down beside him.