emost, was
brought to bear on her antagonist, responded to by the after-guns of the
Frenchman. And now the two frigates ran on before the wind, so close
together that the combatants could see their opponents' faces, pouring
their shot into each other's sides. Fast as the British seamen could
run in their guns, they loaded, and, straining every muscle, they were
rapidly run out again and fired. While round-shot and grapeshot and
canister were sent rattling in through the enemy's ports and across her
decks, about her rigging, or tearing open her sides, she gallantly
returned the compliment with much the same coin. Many of the bold
seamen on board the _Ruby_ were cut down.

A shot struck two men working the gun nearest to where Gipples was
sitting on his powder tub in terror unspeakable, not knowing what moment
he might be hit. On came the mangled forms of the poor fellows,
writhing in their dying agonies, directly against him. He and his tub
were upset, and he was sent, covered with their blood, sprawling on the
deck.

"Oh, I'm killed! I'm killed!" he shrieked out, and, overcome with
terror, did not attempt to rise.

Two of the idlers, whose duty it was to carry the wounded below and
throw the dead overboard,--the common custom in those days of disposing
of them,--hearing him shriek out, thought that he had also been killed.
Having disposed of the first two men who really were dead, they lifted
him up and were about to throw him overboard, when, discovering how he
was to be treated, he groaned out, "Oh, I ain't dead yet--take me
below." The men having been ordered to take all the wounded to the
cockpit, immediately carried him below, and, placing him on the
surgeon's table, one of them said:

"Here's a poor fellow, gentlemen, as seems very bad; but I don't know
whether he wants an arm or a leg cut off most."

"I hope that he may escape without losing either," said the surgeon,
lifting up Gipples and preparing to strip him to examine his wound.
"Where are you hit, my man?"

"Oh, oh, sir! all over, sir!" answered Gregory.

The surgeon, who had noted Gipples for some time and guessed his
character, very quickly ascertained that there was nothing whatever the
matter with him. Taking up a splint, he bestowed a few hearty cuts with
it on his bare body, and then, telling him to jump up and slip on his
clothes, he sent him up on deck to attend to his duty. Poor Gipples
would gladly have hid himself away; but he