of victory for John Paul Jones: to foul the enemy and
board her.

Luckily a spare tiller had been fitted to the rudder stem of the
_Richard_ below the main tiller--before leaving port--because of the
fear that the wheel would be disabled. The foresight of the Commodore
had effected this; and now--by means of this extra steering-gear--the
battered warrior-ship was enabled to make one, last, desperate lunge
for victory. It was touch and go with John Paul Jones.

"I could distinctly hear his voice amid the crashing of musketry,"
says a seaman. "He was cheering on the French marines in their own
tongue, uttering such imprecations upon the enemy as I have never
before or since heard in French, or any other language. He exhorted
them to take good aim, pointed out the object of their fire, and
frequently took their loaded muskets from their hands in order to
shoot them himself. In fact, towards the very last, he had about him a
group of half a dozen marines who did nothing but load their firelocks
and hand them to the Commodore; who fired them from his own shoulder,
standing on the quarter-deck rail by the main topmast backstay."

Luck now came to the disabled _Richard_. A fortunate puff of wind
struck and filled her sails, shooting her alongside of the growling
_Serapis_, and to windward. The canvas of the Britisher flapped
uselessly against her spars. She was blanketed and lost steering-way.
In a moment the jib-boom of the English vessel ran over the poop-deck
of the American ship. It was seized, grappled by a turn of small
hawsers, and made fast to the mizzen-mast.

"She's ours!" cried John Paul Jones. "Seize that anchor and splice it
down hard!"

As he spoke, the fluke of the starboard anchor of the _Serapis_ hooked
in the mizzen chains. It was lashed fast, and the _Richard_ had been
saved.

_Rattle! Rattle! Crash!_ sounded the muskets of the French marines.
The English tried to cut their anchor chains and get free, but all who
attempted to sever these hawsers were struck dead by the accurate
balls from the marksmen on the poop-deck and round-house of the
_Richard_.

"I demand your surrender!" shouted Pearson.

[Illustration: From an old print.
"THEY SWARMED INTO THE FORECASTLE AMIDST FIERCE CHEERS."]

"Surrender?" cried John Paul Jones. "Why, I am just beginning to
fight!"

Then he turned to John Mayrant, who stood ready to rush across the
hammock-nettings into the waist of the enemy's ship. Twenty-seve