Admiral Paul Jones travels to the mouth of the Dnieper and joins Potemkin, who is a military fool. Suwarrow, old and cunning and vigilant and war-wise, is another man. He goes aboard his flagship, the Vladimir, of seventy guns. From the beginning he is befriended by the grizzled Suwarrow and thwarted by the foppish Potemkin. This latter is a discarded favorite of Catherine; and, since she is very loyal to a favorite out of favor, he knows he may take liberties. Old Suwarrow, over his brandy, tells Potemkin’s story to Admiral Paul Jones.

“He kept the Empress’ smiles for a season,” explains Suwarrow; “when all of a sudden, having seen Moimonoff, she fills Potemkin’s pockets with gold and jewels, gives him a two-thousand-serf estate, and bids him ‘travel,’ as she bid twenty of his predecessors travel. ‘In what have I offended?’ whines Potemkin. ‘In nothing,’ returns the Empress. ‘I liked you yesterday; I don’t like you to-day; that is all. So you see, my friend, that you can no longer stay in Petersburg, but must travel!’ This was ten years ago,” continues old Suwarrow. “Potemkin comes down here, and the Empress puts him in charge, and sustains him in all he says and does. My dear Admiral, you must get along with Potemkin to get along with her.”

Admiral Paul Jones is by no means sure that he must get along with Potemkin, and regrets that he quitted France, which holds his Aimee. However, being aboard the Vladimir, and having to his signal twenty ships, he resolves to strike one blow for the savage Catherine, if only to see how a Russian fights and what battering a Turk can stand. It will give him something to talk of, something by which he may compare the English and French and Americans, when next at his ease, with Genet or Jefferson or mayhap King Louis as a fellow conversationist.

The chance comes; Admiral Jones engages the Turkish fleet off Kinburn Head, and destroys it after sixteen hours’ fighting—sinking some, burning others, breaking completely the power of the Crescent. The Turks bear a loss of twenty-nine ships and more than three thousand sailors, while Admiral Paul Jones loses but three small ships. Having advantage of the victory, old Suwarrow brings his army across the Boug. At one blow, Admiral Paul Jones unlocks the Liman and throws it open to the victorious entrance of old Suwarrow.

Oczakoff falls; Admiral Paul Jones, sick of the cowardice and duplicity of Potemkin and his parasite Nassau-Siegen, relinquishes his command. He bids old Suwarrow good-bye, and travels in a manner of lordly leisure, not at all Russian, but particularly American, back............