Commodore Paul Jones goes aboard the beaten _Serapis_. “Cut free that
sta’board anchor!” he cries. The piled dead and wounded are lifted
aside, and that fatal anchor, which for two hours of blood has been as
the backbone of battle, goes splashing into the ocean. The ships rock
apart; as they separate, Commodore Paul Jones takes a sharp survey of
the _Richard_. The survey brings little hope; his good ship that has
fought so well for him lies in the water four smothering feet below its
trim.
“There are eight feet of water in the hold,” replies Lieutenant Dale,
whom he hails. “The pumps choke; there’s no chance to save the ship.”
Then arises a sudden rending and tearing aboard the _Serapis_; there is
a great swish! and a snapping of cordage. It is the mainmast crashing to
port, a tangle of ropes and spars.
“Beg pardon, sir,” says a voice at the elbow of Commodore Paul Jones.
“I’d have had it down an hour ago, but there was neither wind nor swell
to help me. I had to cut it in two shot by shot to drop it, sir.”
Commodore Paul Jones breaks into a smile. “Ah, yes; I remember, Mr.
Lindthwait! I set you at that mainmast with the three long nines. I wish
now that I’d given you another target. However, you did extremely well.
It should teach you, too, my lad, that a nine is as good as an eighteen,
if you’ll only go close enough. That’s it; there’s the whole secret of
success in war. Be sure and go close enough, and you will conquer.”
Midshipman Lindthwait salutes respectfully, and lays away that golden
rule of the battle art in his memory.
The removal of the _Richard_‘s wounded is begun. The calm, windless sea
assists; at last no one is left aboard the shot-pierced _Richard_ but
the dead.
Sixty lionhearts, who gave their lives for victory, are laid side by
side on the deck. The petticoat flag flies proudly from the ensign
gaff. Commodore Paul Jones, from the deck of the _Serapis_, watches the
_Richard_ to the last. The tears dim his sight, and he is driven more
than once to dash them away; for a sailor loves his ship as though it
were a woman.
The _Richard_ settles by the head; the stern is lifted clear of the
water. Then, as though seized by some impulse, the _Richard_, bows
first, dives for the bottom of the sea. The last that is seen, as the
stout old ship goes down, is the virgin petticoat flag of the pretty
Portsmouth girls. Commodore Paul Jones, bare of head, tears blinding his
eyes, waves a last farewell.
“Good-bye, my lads!” he cries. “And you, too, my _Richard_; good-bye!”
The _Pallas_ comes up, breeze aft. The little ship throws its head into
the wind, and Captain Cot-tineau hails Commodore Paul Jones.
“I have the honor, sir,” says Captain Cottineau, “to report the enemy’s
surrender of his ship.”
Captain Cottineau points with his speaking-trumpet to the _Countess of
Scarboro_ a furlong astern, the stars and stripes above the Union Jack.
Commodore Paul Jones congratulates Captain Cottineau, and tells him to
make sail for Dunkirk with his prize. Captain Cottineau, observing the
helpless _Serapis_, its deck a jungle of cordage and broken timbers,
replies that if Commodore Paul Jones doesn’t mind he’d sooner stand by.
Commodore Paul Jones doesn’t mind, and so Captain Cottineau, with the
_Pallas_ and the captured Scarboro stands by. The loyalty of Captain
Cottineau flushes the bronzed cheek of Commodore Paul Jones. It is a
change from the villain Landais! Ah, yes! Landais! The brow of Commodore
Paul Jones turns black with anger; for a moment he forgot the scoundrel.
He runs his glass along the horizon to seaward. There is no sign of
the Alliance. Long ago the traitor Landais turned his recreant bows for
France.
An off-shore gale springs up; adrift and helpless, the _Serapis_ is
carried seventy miles towards the coast of Norway. This is fortunate; it
carries the ship outside the search of those twenty frigates and ships
of the line, which are already furiously ransacking the English coast in
quest of Commodore Paul Jones.
The wind veers to the southwest, and blows a hurricane. The Serapis is
all but thrown upon the coast of Denmark, and has work to keep afloat.
With one hundred and six wounded, and the dead who went down with the
_Richard_, Commodore Paul Jones is short of hands to work his ship. At
the best, no more than one hundred and fifty are fit for duty. In the
end the battered _Serapis_ makes the Texel, and a common sigh of relief
goes up from those seven hundred and twelve souls--crew and wounded and
prisoners--who are aboard the ship.
And now Commodore Paul Jones must lay aside his sword for chicane,
abandon his guns in favor of diplomacy. His anchors are hardly down
in Dutch mud, before Sir Joseph Yorke, English Ambassador to Holland,
demands the _Serapis_ from the Dutch authorities. Also, he declares that
they must arrest Commodore Paul Jones “as a rebel and a pirate.”
The Dutch display a wish to argue the case with Sir Joseph, while
Commodore Paul Jones double-shots his guns and runs them out; for
much in the way of repairs has been effected aboard the _Serapis_, and
although it can’t sail it can fight.
Sir Joseph, at the grinning insolence of the _Serapis_’
broadsides--ports triced up and muzzles showing--almost falls in an
apoplectic fit. Purple as to face, he sends a second time to the Dutch,
to learn whether or no he is to have the _Serapis_ and the rebel and
pirate Paul Jones.
For five days the Dutch drink beer, smoke pipes, and think the matter
over. Then they tell Sir Joseph that, while they don’t know what to call
Commodore Paul Jones, they have decided not to call him a pirate. Rebel,
he may be; but in that role of rebel King George and Sir Joseph must
catch him for themselves. The most the Dutch will do is order the
_Serapis_ to leave the Texel. At this the empurpled Sir Joseph becomes
more empurpled than ever. It is the best he can get, however; and
since, during the night, a fleet of British men of war, hearing of the
whereabouts of Commodore Paul Jones, have invested the mouth of the
Helder and are waiting for him to come out, he begins to be a trifle
comforted. If the Dutch will but drive the “rebel” from the port,
it should do nicely; the English fleet outside will snap him up at a
mouthful.
Commodore Paul Jones refuses to be driven out. He sits stubbornly by his
anchors, decks cleared, guns shotted, boarding nettings up--an insult
to the purple Sir Joseph and a frowning defiance to the Dutch! The Dutch
and Sir Joseph look at him, and then at each other. They agree that
he is either the most exasperating of rebels, or the most insolent of
pirates, or the most impertinent of guests, according to their various
standpoints.
Meanwhile, the French Ambassador is bestirring himself. He makes a
stealthy visit to Commodore Paul Jones. The French king has sent him,
post-haste, a commission as Captain in the French marine. The French
Ambassador tenders the commission. Upon accepting it, Commodore Paul
Jones can run up the French flag. The Dutch will respect the tri-color,
and there will come no more orders for the _Serapis_ to quit the Texel.
Commodore Paul Jones declines the French commission. Neither will he
run up the French flag. “I am an officer of the American Navy,” says he,
“and the French tri-color no more belongs at my masthead than at General
Washington’s headquarters. I shall stand or fall by the Stars and
Stripes. Also, here at the Texel I stay, until I’m ready to leave; that
I say in the teeth of Dutchman and Englishman alike.”
When this hardy note goes ashore, the Dutch look solemn, Sir Joseph
retires with the gout, while the English outside the mouth of the
Hel-der, stand oft and on, gnashing their iron teeth.