But the splendid discipline of the British service was at its best in such a crisis.  The boats flew back; their crews clustered aboard; they were swung up at the davits and the fall-ropes made fast.  Hammocks were brought up and stowed, bulkheads sent down, ports and magazines opened, the fires put out in the galley, and the drums beat to quarters.  Swarms of men set the head-sails and brought the frigate round, while the gun-crews threw off their jackets and shirts, tightened their belts, and ran out their eighteen-pounders, peering through the open portholes at the stately French man.  The wind was very light.  Hardly a ripple showed itself upon the clear blue water, but the sails blew gently out as the breeze came over the wooded banks.  The Frenchman had gone about also, and both ships were now heading slowly for the sea under fore-and-aft canvas, the Gloire a hundred yards in advance.  She luffed up to cross the Leda’s bows, but the British ship came round also, and the two rippled slowly on in such a silence that the ringing of the ramrods as the French marines drove home their charges clanged quite loudly upon the ear.

“Not much sea-room, Mr. Wharton,” remarked the captain.

“I have fought actions in less, sir.”

“We must keep our distance and trust to our gunnery.  She is very heavily manned, and if she got alongside we might find ourselves in trouble.”

“I see the shakoes of soldiers aboard other.”

“Two companies of light infantry from Martinique.  Now we have her!  Hard-a-port, and let her have it as we cross her stern!”

The keen eye of the little commander had seen the surface ripple, which told of a passing breeze.  He had used it to dart across the big Frenchman and to rake her with every gun as he passed.  But, once past her, the Leda had to come back into the wind to keep out of shoal water.  The manoeuvre brought her on to the starboard side of the Frenchman, and the trim little frigate seemed to heel right over under the crashing broadside which burst from the gaping ports.  A moment later her topmen were swarming aloft to set her top-sails and royals, and she strove to cross the Gloire’s bows and rake her again.  The French captain, however, brought his frigate’s head round, and the two rode side by side within easy pistol-shot, pouring broadsides into each other in one of those murderous duels which, could they all be recorded, would mottle our charts with blood.

In that heavy tropical air, with so faint a breeze, the smoke formed a thick bank round the two vessels, from which the topmasts only protruded.  Neither could see anything of its enemy save the throbs of fire in the darkness, and the guns were sponged and trained and fired into a dense wall of vapour.  On the poop and the forecastle the marines, in two little red lines, were pouring in their volleys, but neither they nor the seamen-gunners could see what