Master-at-arms John Burbank looks over the Richard’s side, and makes a discovery. The ship has settled three feet below its trim. Thereupon he loses his head, which was never a strong head, but somewhat thick, and addled:

“The ship is sinking!” he shouts; then, being a humanitarian, he tears off the orlop-hatch, and calls to the two hundred prisoners shut up below to save themselves.

At the invitation of Humanitarian Burbank, the prisoners rush up. Fifty of them have gained the deck when Commodore Paul Jones perceives them. Pulling a pistol from his belt, he charges forward.

“Who released these prisoners?” he demands.

“The ship is sinking, sir,” replies Humanitarian Burbank. “I released them to give them a chance for their lives.”

Eye ablaze, Commodore Paul Jones snaps his pistol in the face of Humanitarian Burbank. Fortunately for that philanthropist, the priming has been shaken out; while the flint throws off a shower of sparks, the pistol does not explode. Upon its failure to fire. Commodore Paul Jones clubs the heavy weapon, and fells Humanitarian Burbank to the deck. The latter comes to presently, to find himself disrated on the ship’s books, and his addled pate more addled than before. As Humanitarian Burbank falls to the deck, Commodore Paul Jones makes a dash for the prisoners, who, two abreast, are pushing up from the deck below.

“Under hatches with them!” he cries.

This rouses Midshipman Potter, who brings up a half dozen cutlass men, and those of the prisoners not yet on deck are held below. The orlop-hatch is again fitted to its place, and Commodore Paul Jones breathes freer. Two hundred prisoners loose about his decks is not what he most desires.

“Set them to the pumps, Dick,” he says, addressing Lieutenant Dale. “Give them plenty of work.” Then, to the fifty prisoners who gained the deck: “Now, my men, to the pumps, all of you! I’ll have no idlers about!”

The prisoners go to the pumps readily enough—all save a stubborn merchant captain, whose ship was captured by the Richard off the port of Leith.

“Don’t ye go a-nigh the pumps, mates!” sings out the stubborn one. “Let the damned Yankee pirate sink!”

“Obey the Commodore, sare!” pipes up little Pierre Gerard, presenting a pistol at the head of the mutineer. “Obey the Commodore, or I shoot, sare!”

The stubborn Scotch captain does not understand little Pierre’s broken English, but the pistol is easily construed. For reply, he makes a quick grab at the weapon. Little Pierre, not to be caught napping, shoots him promptly through the head. As the stubborn one drops lifeless, the little Breton wheels on Commodore Paul Jones, lays his hand on his heart, and makes an apologetic bow.

“I shoot heem, sare, to relieve you of a disagreeable duty,” says little Pierre.

The other prisoners are not unimpressed by the fate of the stubborn one, and set to work briskly, if not cheerfully, at the clanking pumps.

As Commodore Paul Jones reaches the quarterdeck, following the incident wherein Humanitarian Burbank performs, and the stubborn Scotch captain dies, the ensign-gaff of the Richard is shot away, and the virgin petticoat flag of the pretty New Hampshire girls trails overboard. This gives rise to a misunderstanding. Gunner Arthur Randall, missing the ensign, and his hopes being somewhat low at the time, calls out to the Englishman:

“Cease firing! We’ve surrendered!”

Captain Pearson, on the quarter-deck of the Serapis, hears the cry. There could have come no more welcome news! Captain Pearson would have heard gunner Randall if the latter had spoken in a whisper! Face aglow with joy, Captain Pearson hails the Richard:

“Do you surrender?” he demands.

Commodore Paul Jones leaps to the rail of the Richard, and sustains himself by one of the afterbraces.

“Surrender?” he repeats, his brow dark with rage. “Surrender? I would have you to know, sir, that we’ve just begun to fight!”

Back to the deck springs Commodore Paul Jones, while the face of Captain Pearson is stricken old and white. For the earliest time he realizes the desperate heart of that unconquerable one who has him in a death-grapple, and a premonition of his own defeat pierces his heart like a dagger of ice. As Commodore Paul Jones regains the deck, he observes Boatswain Jack Robinson who has waddled aft. The cloud of anger fades from his brow, and he breaks into a loud laugh that is tenfold worse than the cloud.

“Eh, Jack, old trump! What say you to quitting?” he cries.

“Why! as to surrenderin’, Commodore,” says Boatswain Jack Robinson, refreshing himself with a huge chew of tobacco, “I’m for sinkin’ alongside an’ seein’ ‘em damned first! Sink alongside, says I; an’ if the grapplin’ tackle holds, we’ll take ‘em with us to Davy Jones, d’ye see! An’ that’ll be a comfort!”

“There’s the heart of oak!” returns Commodore Paul Jones, in vast approval of Boatswain Jack Robinson’s turgid views; “and when............