on, you froggies; we are ready for you," he shouted, as if
he had a hundred men in ambush.

They, for their part, failed to enter into the niceties of his
language--which difficulty somehow used never to be felt among classic
warriors--yet from his manner and position they made out that he offered
let and hinderance. To remove him from their course, they began to load
guns, or to look about for loaded ones, postponing their advance until
he should cease to interfere, so clear at that time was the Gallic
perception of an English sailor's fortitude. Seeing this to be so, Jack
(whose mind was not well balanced) threw a powder-case amongst them, and
exhibited a dance. But this was cut short by a hand-grenade, and, before
he had time to recover from that, the deck within a yard of his head
flew open, and a stunning crash went by.

Poor Jack Anerley lay quite senseless, while ten or twelve men (who
were rushing up, to repel the enemy) fell and died in a hurricane of
splinters. A heavy round shot, fired up from the enemy's main-deck, had
shattered all before it; and Jack might thank the grenade that he lay
on his back while the havoc swept over. Still, his peril was hot, for a
volley of musketry whistled and rang around him; and at least a hundred
and fifty men were watching their time to leap down on him.

Everything now looked as bad as could be, with the drifting of the
smoke, and the flare of fire, and the pelting of bullets, and of grapnel
from coehorns, and the screams of Frenchmen exulting vastly, with
scarcely any Englishmen to stop them. It seemed as if they were to do as
they pleased, level the bulwarks of English rights, and cover themselves
with more glory than ever. But while they yet waited to give one more
scream, a very different sound arose. Powder, and metal, and crash
of timber, and even French and Spanish throats at their very highest
pressure, were of no avail against the onward vigor and power of an
English cheer. This cheer had a very fine effect. Out of their own
mouths the foreigners at once were convicted of inferior stuff, and
their two twelve-pounders crammed with grapnel, which ought to have
scattered mortality, banged upward, as harmless as a pod discharging
seed.

In no account of this great conflict is any precision observed
concerning the pell-mell and fisticuff parts of it. The worst of it is
that on such occasions almost everybody who was there enlarges his own
share of it; and although r