The day was calm and nearly still; only a light wind stirred
across the sea. At one o'clock the Wasp's drum beat to quarters,
and the sailors and marines gathered at their appointed posts.
The drum of the Reindeer responded to the challenge, and with her
sails reduced to fighting trim, her guns run out, and every man
ready, she came down upon the Yankee ship. On her forecastle she
had rigged a light carronade, and coming up from behind, she five
times discharged this pointblank into the American sloop; then in
the light air the latter luffed round, firing her guns as they
bore, and the two ships engaged yard-arm to yard-arm. The guns
leaped and thundered as the grimy gunners hurled them out to fire
and back again to load, working like demons. For a few minutes
the cannonade was tremendous, and the men in the tops could
hardly see the decks for the wreck of flying splinters. Then the
vessels ground together, and through the open ports the rival
gunners hewed, hacked, and thrust at one another, while the black
smoke curled up from between the hulls. The English were
suffering terribly. Captain Manners himself was wounded, and
realizing that he was doomed to defeat unless by some desperate
effort he could avert it, he gave the signal to board. At the
call the boarders gathered, naked to the waist, black with powder
and spattered with blood, cutlas and pistol in hand. But the
Americans were ready. Their marines were drawn up on deck, the
pikemen stood behind the bulwarks, and the officers watched, cool
and alert, every movement of the foe. Then the British sea-dogs
tumbled aboard, only to perish by shot or steel. The combatants
slashed and stabbed with savage fury, and the assailants were
driven back. Manners sprang to their head to lead them again
himself, when a ball fired by one of the sailors in the American
tops crashed through his skull, and he fell, sword in hand, with