ne till the boarders
reached the ship, when the thirty-pounder, doubtless loaded with grape
or shrapnel, was to mow down the invaders of the deck.

Christy's men poured down after him, and before the crew of the gun, who
had no doubt been ordered to conceal themselves, could get upon their
feet they were cut down by the impetuous tars from the Bellevite. It
was the work of but a moment. Christy had taken some pains to have the
opinion of Captain Rombold that American seamen were inferior to British
circulated, and the men evidently intended to prove that they were the
equals of any sailors afloat.

"Swing the muzzle of the gun to starboard!" shouted Christy, as he took
hold with his own hands to point the piece, which was in position in a
moment.

Captain Rombold stood but a short distance from the stump of the mizzen
mast with a cutlass in his hand. He rushed forward to rally his crew;
and he seemed to be rendered desperate by the failure of the scheme to
which he had resorted. At this moment Christy heard Captain Breaker
shout the order to board, and the men were springing to the rail, and
tearing away the boarding netting.

"Stand by the lanyard!" cried the first lieutenant on the quarter-deck
of the enemy, and he had sighted the piece himself in the absence of any
regular gun crew. "Fire!"

The cloud of smoke concealed all of the deck forward of the mizzen mast,
and Christy could not see what effect had been produced by the charge of
grape, or whatever it was. At any rate the men the commander had rallied
for a charge did not appear.

The smoke was blown away in a minute or so, and the Bellevite's sailors
had made a lodgment on the deck of the enemy. They were led by the
officers of the divisions, and were rushing over to the starboard, where
the enemy's men had been concentrated. They were brave men, whether
English or not, and the moment they could see the boarders, they rushed
at them by command of their officers; but they pushed forward, as it
were, out of a heap of killed and wounded, those who had fallen by the
grape-shot intended to decimate the ranks of the loyal band.

Christy rallied his men as soon as they had done their work in the
vicinity of the thirty-pounder, and ordered them to join their division
under the command of the third lieutenant. But the seamen on the part of
the Confederates seemed to be dispirited to some extent by the bad
beginning they had made, and by the heap of slain near th