most to restore order. He had a young son with
him--a gallant little fellow, who had stood unharmed by his side during
the hottest of the fight; and was he now thus to perish? Could he save
the boy? There seemed no hope.

Captain Garland had been aloft all day with his glass, as had also
several of his officers, eagerly watching the proceedings of the two
fleets. Never for a moment did he doubt on which side victory would
drop her wreath of laurel; still his heart beat with an anxiety unusual
for him. He had remarked the two ships remaining hotly engaged, yardarm
to yardarm out of the line, and he had never lost sight of them
altogether. What their condition would be after so desperate and
lengthened an encounter he justly surmised, and he at length bore down
to aid a friend in capturing an enemy, or to succour one or the other.

The _Ruby_ had more than one ship to contend with on her way, and her
boats were summoned by signal to take possession of a prize; so that the
evening was drawing on when she, with another ship, and the _Rattler_
cutter, got down to the sinking Frenchman.

Evidently, from the depth of the shattered seventy-four in the water,
and the slow way in which she rolled, she had but a short time longer to
float. The guns were secured, and every boat that could swim was
instantly lowered from the sides of the British ships. The gallant
seamen showed themselves as eager to save life as they had been to
destroy it.

"Jump, jump, Jean Crapaud!--jump, jump, friends!" they shouted as they
got alongside. "We'll catch you, never fear," they added, holding out
their arms.

Numbers of Frenchmen, begrimed with powder and covered with blood, threw
themselves headlong into the boats, and had it not been for the English
seamen, would have been severely injured. Some refused to come, and
looked through the ports, shouting, "Vive la Nation!", "Vive la
Republique!"

"Poor fools!" cried Paul Pringle sadly; "they'll soon be singing a
different tune when the water is closing over their heads. That will
bring them too late to their senses."

The boats, as fast as their eager crews could urge them, went backwards
and forwards between the sinking Frenchman and the English ships. Some
hundreds had been taken off; but still the wounded and many of the
drunken remained.

Sir Henry Elmore commanded one of the boats, and True Blue was in her.
In one of her early trips an officer appeared at one of the ports,