throughout the whole line. At the first tap, the great cabin sunk to the level of an ordinary battery; the seamen of two guns, with the proper officers, entering within the sacred limits, and coolly setting about clearing their pieces, and making the other preparations necessary for action. All this time Sir Gervaise continued pacing what would have been the center of his own cabin had the bulkheads stood, the grim-looking sailors avoiding him with great dexterity, and invariably touching their hats as they were compelled to glide near his person, though everything went on as if he were not present. Sir Gervaise might have remained lost in thought much longer than he did, had not the report of a gun recalled him to a consciousness of the scene that was enacting around him. "What's that?" suddenly demanded the vice-admiral; “is Bluewater signalling. again?" "No, Sir Gervaise," answered the fourth lieutenant, looking out of a lee port; "it is the French admiral giving us another weather-gun; as much as to ask why we don't go down. This is the second compliment of the same sort that he has paid us already to-day!" These words were not all spoken before the vice-admiral was on the quarter deck; in half a minute more, he was on the poop. Here he found Greenly, Wychecombe, and Bunting, all looking with interest at the beautiful line of the enemy. "Monsieur de Vervillin is impatient to wipe off the disgrace of yesterday," observed the first, "as is apparent by the invitations he gives us to come down. I presume Admiral Bluewater will wake up at this last hint." "By Heaven, he has hauled his wind, and is standing to the northward and eastward!" exclaimed Sir Gervaise, surprise overcoming all his discretion. "Although an extraordinary movement, at such time, it is wonderful in what beautiful order Bluewater keeps his ships!" All that was said was true enough. The rear-admiral's division having suddenly hauled up, in a close line ahead, each ship followed her leader as mechanically as if they moved by a common impulse. As no one in the least doubted the rear-admiral's loyalty, and his courage was of proof, it was the general opinion that this unusual manoeuvre had some connection with the unintelligible signals, and the young officers laughingly inquired among themselves what "Sir Jarvy was likely to do next?" It would seem, however, that Monsieur de Vervillin suspected a repetition of some of the scenes of the preceding day; for, no sooner did he perceive that the English rear was hugging the wind, than five of his leading ships filled, and drew ahead, as if to meet that division, manoeuvring to double on the head of his line; while the remaining five, with the "Foudroyant," still lay with their topsails to the mast, waiting for their enemy to come down. Sir Gervaise could not stand this long. He determined, if possible, to bring Bluewater to terms, and he ordered the "Plantagenet" to fill. Followed by his own division, he wore immediately, and went off under easy sail, quartering, toward Monsieur de Vervillin's rear, to avoid being raked. The quarter of an hour that succeeded was one of intense interest, and of material changes; though not a shot was fired. As soon as the Comte de Vervillin perceived that the English were disposed to come nearer, he signaled his own division to bear up, and to run off dead before the wind, under their topsails, commencing astern; which reversed his order of sailing, and brought "Le Foudroyant" in the rear, or nearest to the enemy. This was no sooner done, than he settled all his topsails on the caps. There could be no mistaking this manœuvre. It was a direct invitation to Sir Gervaise to come down, fairly alongside; the bearing up at once removing all risk of being raked in so doing. The English commander-in-chief was not a man to neglect such a palpable challenge; but, making a few signals to direct the mode of attack he contemplated, he set foresail and maintopgallant sail, and brought the wind directly over his own taffrail. The vessels astern followed like clock-work, and no one now doubted that the mode of attack was settled for that day. As the French, with Monsieur de Vervillin, were still half a mile to the southward and eastward of the approaching division of their enemy, the comte collected all his frigates and corvettes on his starboard hand, leaving a clear approach to Sir Gervaise on his larboard beam. This hint was understood, too, and the "Plantagenet" steered a course that would bring her up on that side of "Le Foudroyant," and at the distance of about one hundred yards from the muzzles of her guns. This threatened to be close work, and unusual work in fleets, at that day; but it was the game our commander-in-chief was fond of playing, and it was one, also, that promised soonest to bring matters to a result. These preliminaries arranged, there was yet leisure for the respective commanders to look about them. The French were still fully a mile ahead of their enemies, and as both fleets were going in the same direction, the approach of the English was so slow as to leave some twenty minutes of that solemn breathing-time which reigns in a disciplined ship previous to the combat. The feelings of the two commanders-in-chief, at this pregnant instant, were singularly in contradiction to each other. The Comte de Vervillin saw that the rear division of his force, under the Comte-Admiral le Vicomte des Prez, was in the very position he desired it to be, having obtained the advantage of the wind by the English division's coming down, and by keeping its own luff. Between the two French officers there was a perfect understanding as to the course each was to take, and both now felt sanguine hopes of being able to obliterate the disgrace of the previous day, and that, too, by means very similar to those by which it had been incurred. On the other hand, Sir Gervaise was beset with doubts as to the course Bluewater might pursue. He could not, however, come to the conclusion that he would abandon him to the joint efforts of the two hostile divisions; and so long as the French rear-admiral was occupied by the English force to windward, it left to himself a clear field and no favor in the action with Monsieur de Vervillin. He knew Bluewater's generous nature too well not to feel certain his own compliance with the request not to signal his inferior would touch his heart, and give him a double chance with all his better feelings. Nevertheless, Sir Gervaise Oakes did not lead into this action without many and painful misgivings. He had lived too long in the world not to know that political prejudice was the most demoralizing of all our weaknesses, veiling our private vices under the plausible concealment of the public weal, and rendering even the well-disposed insensible to the wrongs they commit to individuals, by means of the deceptive flattery of serving the community. As doubt was more painful than the certainty of his worst forebodings, however, and it was not in his nature to refuse a combat so fairly offered, he was resolved to close with the comte at every hazard, trusting the issue to God, and his own efforts. The "Plantagenet " presented an eloquent picture of order and preparation, as she drew near the French line, on this memorable occasion. Her people were all at quarters, and, as Greenly walked through her batteries, he found every gun on the starboard side loose, leveled, and ready to be fired; while the opposite merely required a turn or two of the tackles to be cast loose, the priming to be applied, and the loggerhead to follow, in order to be discharged, also. A death-like stillness reigned from the poop to the cock-pit, the older seamen occasionally glancing through their ports in order to ascertain the relative positions of the two fleets, that they might be ready for the collision. As the English got within musket-shot, the French ran their topsails to the mastheads, and their ships gathered fresher way through the water. Still the former moved with the greatest velocity, carrying the most sail, and impelled by the greater momentum. When near enough, however, Sir Gervaise gave the order to reduce the canvas of his own ship. The order was obeyed with machine-like promptitude, and in a few moments the admiral turned again to the captain. "That will do, Greenly," he said, in a mild, quiet tone. "Let run the topgallant-halyards and haul up the foresail. The way you have, will bring you fairly alongside." The captain gave the necessary orders, and the master shortened sail accordingly. Still the "Plantagenet" shot ahead, and, in three or four minutes more, her bows doubled so far on "Le Foudroyant's" quarter, as to permit a gun to bear. This was the signal for both sides, each ship opening as it might be in the same breath. The flash, the roar, and the eddying smoke followed in quick succession, and in a period of time that seemed nearly instantaneous. The crash of shot, and the shriek of wounded mingled with the infernal din, for nature extorts painful concessions of human weaknesses at such moments, even from the bravest and firmest. Bunting was in the act of reporting to Sir Gervaise that no signal could be seen from the "Cæsar" in the midst of this uproar, when a small round shot discharged from the Frenchman's poop passed through his body, literally driving the heart before it, leaving him dead at his commander's feet. "I shall depend on you, Sir Wycherly, for the discharge of poor Bunting's duty the remainder of the cruise," observed Sir Gervaise, with a smile in which courtesy and regret struggled singularly for the mastery. "Quartermasters, lay Mr. Bunting's body a little out of the way, and cover it with those signals. They are a suitable pall for so brave a man!" Just as this occurred, the "Warspite" came clear of the "Plantagenet," on her outside, according to orders, and she opened with her forward guns, taking the second ship in the French line for her target. In two minutes more these vessels also were furiously engaged in the hot strife. In this manner, ship after ship passed on the outside of the "Plantagenet," and sheered into her berth ahead of her who had just been her own leader, until the "Achilles," Lord Morganic, the last of the five, lay fairly side by side with " Le Conquereur," the vessel now at the head of the French line. That the reader may understand the incidents more readily, we will give the opposing lines in the precise form in which they lay, namely: — Plantagenet Blenheim, Thunderer, Achilles, Le Foudroyant, Le Dugay Trouin, Le Conquereur. The constantly recurring discharges of four hundred pieces of heavy ordnance, within a space so small, had the effect to repel the regular currents of air, and, almost immediately, to lessen a breeze of six or seven knots, to one that would not propel a ship more than two or three. This was the first observable phenomenon connected with the action, but as it had been expected, Sir Gervaise had used the precaution to lay his ships as near as possible in the positions in which he intended. them to fight the battle. The next great physical consequence, one equally expected and natural, but which wrought a great change in the aspect of the battle, was the cloud of smoke in which the ten ships were suddenly enveloped. At the first broadside between the two admirals, volumes of light fleecy vapor rolled over the sea, meeting midway, and, rising thence in curling wreaths, left nothing but the masts and sails of the adversary visible in the hostile ship. This, of itself, would have soon hidden the combatants in the bosom of a nearly impenetrable cloud; but as vessels drove onward they entered deeper beneath the sulphurous canopy, until it spread on each side of them shutting out the view of ocean, skies, and horizon. The burning of the priming below contributed to increase the smoke, until not only was respiration difficult, but those who fought only a few yards apart frequently could not recognize each other's faces. In the midst of this scene of obscurity, and a din that might well have alarmed the caverns of the ocean, the earnest and well drilled seamen toiled at their ponderous guns, VOL VI 16 |