, and so many men had fallen, that Captain Vincent
determined to end the conflict at once by boarding the frigate. The
necessary orders were given, and a strong party of boarders was called
away and mustered on the forecastle, headed by Beauchamp and Hollins;
among the number were little Montagu, with other midshipmen. Taking
advantage of the smoke and of the weather-gage, the Yarmouth was
suddenly headed for the Randolph. As the enormous bows of the
line-of-battle ship came slowly shoving out of the smoke, towering
above them, covered with men, cutlass or boarding pike in hand, Seymour
discerned at once the purpose of the manoeuvre. Raising himself upon
his elbow to better direct the movement,--

"All hands repel boarders!" he shouted, his voice echoing through the
ship as powerfully as ever.

This was an unusual command, as it completely deprived the guns of
their crews; but he rightly judged that it would take all the men they
could muster to repel the coming attack, and none but the main-deck
guns of the Yarmouth would or could be fired, for fear of hitting their
own men in the melee on the deck. The Randolph was a wreck below, at
best; but while anything held together above her plank shears, she
would be fought. The men had reached that desperate condition when
they ceased to think of odds, and like maddened beasts fought and raved
and swore in the frenzy of the combat. The thrice-decimated crew
sprang aft, rallying in the gangway to meet the shock, Nason at their
head, followed close by old Bentley, still unwounded. As the bow of
the Yarmouth struck the Randolph with a crash, one or two wounded men,
unable to take part in repelling the boarders but still able to move,
who had remained beside the guns, exerted the remaining strength they
possessed to discharge such of the pieces as bore, in long raking
shots, through the bow of the liner; it was the last sound from their
hot muzzles.

The Yarmouth struck the Randolph just forward of the mainmast; the men,
swarming in dense masses on the rail and hanging over the bowsprit
ready to leap, dropped on her deck at once with loud cheers. A sharp
volley from the few marines left on the frigate checked them for a
moment,--nobody noticing at the time that the Honorable Giles had
fallen in a limp heap back from the rail upon his own deck, the blood
staining his curly head; but they gathered themselves together at once,
and, gallantly led, sprang aft, handling thei