“Their loose cartridges must have been fired,” I exclaimed, “God help the poor wretches.”
“The day’s our own—huzza!” sung out a warrant officer beside me, “but, in the name of heaven,” he said suddenly, “what means the Alliance?—she is firing into us.”
I looked to windward, and no words can express my astonishment, when I saw, in the hazy distance, the ship which ought to have been engaged at our side with the foe, now heading to the westward, and firing hotly in our direction, at the very moment that she was crossing our larboard quarter, and when her shot could not reach the foe without passing directly through us. The discharge, indeed, dismounted two of our guns, beside damaging us aloft. She was by this time nearing us fast, and directly abeam.
“You’re firing into a friend,” shouted fifty voices in a breath.
“What does he mean?” said Dale, “surely he can see that we haven’t yellow sides like the foe—shew him the signal of recognition.”
The three lanterns, in a line, were instantly let down on the off side, when the Alliance ceased firing.
“Lay the enemy aboard,” shouted the officer of the deck.
No answer was returned, and our consort kept coolly on her course.
“Did you hear the order?” thundered the now exasperated commodore; “lay the enemy aboard, I say.”
“Perdition take the cowardly traitor,” muttered Paul Jones betwixt his teeth, as he turned from the recreant ship.
I watched, however, the course of the frigate until she had hauled off some distance, and was almost lost in the shadowy gloom to larboard, when suddenly a cry of “fire” startled me, and turning hastily around I saw that the lower deck was a mass of flame. The confusion, for a moment, baffled description. Men were hastening to and fro for buckets; some shouted one thing and some another; a general consternation seemed to be spreading among the crew, and all discipline, for an interval of several minutes, was lost. To add to the disorder, the ship was perceptibly settling, and a rumour spread through the decks that we would sink in less than ten minutes. While everything was still plunged in chaos, the Alliance again appeared, edging down on our larboard beam, and hauling up athwart our bows, she poured in a fire of grape, which took effect on our crowded forecastle, instead of on the enemy—if indeed it was ever intended for the foe—and killed several of our own men. Never shall I forget the fate of one of our best officers—poor Creswell! who fell a victim to this discharge. I held his head in his last moments, and with his eye already glazing in death, and his tongue faltering in its accents, he prayed God to forgive his countrymen for his wanton murder. My blood boiled with indignation against the scoundrel who commanded the gallant Alliance, and, at that moment, I would have given ten years of my life to have crossed swords with Landais.