fly,
and sending many a poor fellow out of the world, when suddenly the
darkness, which had till now surrounded us, was lighted up by the bright
flames which darted out of every port and twisted round the masts of a
burning ship. We soon learned that she was a French ship, the big
`L'Orient,' with which the `Billyruffian' had been engaged. Never did I
see such a sight; in a few minutes she was just one mass of flame, from
her truck to the water's edge. Her miserable crew, from one end of her
to the other, were leaping into the water to avoid the scorching heat.
`Out boats!' was the order, and each of our ships near at hand sent as
many boats as could be manned to the rescue of our unfortunate enemies.
Had they been our own shipmates, we could not have exerted ourselves
more. Still the battle raged from one end of the line to the other.
Suddenly there was a sound as if the earth were rent asunder. In one
pointed mass of flame up went the tall masts, and spars, and the decks
of the huge `L'Orient.' They seemed, in one body of fire, to rise above
our mastheads, and then down they came, spreading far and wide, hissing
into the water among the boats and the hundreds of poor wretches
struggling for their lives. Among them was the French commodore.
Captain Casabianca, I heard, was his name. He was a brave man. He had
his son with him, a little fellow only ten years old, as gallant, those
we rescued told us, as his father. They were blown up together. We saw
the two, the father holding on his son clinging to a spar. We pulled
towards them, but just then a bit of the burning wreck must have struck
them and carried them down, for when we got up to the spot they were
nowhere to be seen. That's the worst of a battle; there are so many
young boys on board who often get as cruelly hurt as the men, and
haven't the strength to bear up against their sufferings. Well, as I
was saying, we pulled about, picking up the half-burnt struggling
wretches wherever we could find them among the bits of floating wreck.
Only seventy were saved out of many more than a thousand men on board.
That was about ten o'clock. For some time not a shot was fired. Every
man felt that something awful had happened, but still many of the
Frenchmen hadn't given in. So at it again we went, and blazed away at
each other till three in the morning. When daylight returned, only two
of the enemy's ships of the line had their colours flying, and they had
n