r pistols and pikes and
waving their cutlasses. Nason was shot in a moment by Hollins' pistol,
Beauchamp was cut in two by a tremendous sweep of the arm of the mighty
Bentley, and the combat became at once general. Slowly but surely the
Americans were pressed back; the gangways were cleared; the
quarter-deck was gained; one by one the brave defenders had fallen.
The battle was about over when Seymour noticed a man running out in the
foreyard of the Yarmouth with a hand-grenade. He raised his pistol and
fired; the man fell; but another resolutely started to follow him.

Bentley and a few other men, and one or two officers and a midshipman,
were all who were able to bear arms now.

"Good-by, Mr. Seymour," cried Bentley, waving his hand and setting his
back against the rail nearest to the Yarmouth, which had slowly swung
parallel to the Randolph and had been lashed there. The old man was
covered with blood from two or three wounds, but still undaunted. Two
or three men made a rush at him; but he held them at bay, no man caring
to come within sweep of that mighty arm which had already done so much,
when a bullet from above struck him, and he fell over backward on the
rail mortally wounded.

Seymour raised his remaining pistol and fired it at the second man, who
had nearly reached the foreyard arm; less successful this time, he
missed the man, who threw his grenade down the hatchway. Seymour
fainted from loss of blood.

"Back, men! back to the ship, all you Yarmouths!" cried Captain
Vincent, as he saw the lighted grenade, which exploded and ignited a
little heap of cartridges left by a dead powder-boy before the
magazine. Alas! there was no one there to check or stop the flames.
The English sailors sprang back and up the sides and through the ports
of their ship with frantic haste; the lashings were being rapidly cut
by them, and the braces handled.

"Come aboard, men, while you can," cried Captain Vincent to the
Americans. "Your ship 's afire; you can do no more; you 'll blow up in
a moment!"

The little handful of Americans were left alone on their ship. The
only officer still standing lifted his sword and shook it impotently at
the Yarmouth in reply; the rest did not stir. The smoke of battle had
now settled away, and the whole ghastly scene was revealed. A woman's
cry rang out fraught with agony,--"Seymour, Seymour!" and again was her
cry unheeded; her lover could not hear. She cried again; and then,