Musket balls were now rattling pretty freely amongst the shrouds.  The young men levelled their muskets and fired.

Soon after, the two ships were abreast of each other, and almost at the same instant both discharged a deadly broadside.  The conflict became general.  The crashing of the woodwork and the roaring of the guns was deafening.  A thick smoke enveloped the two vessels, so that nothing could be seen of the one from the other; still the firing and crashing went on.  The sails were torn to shreds, the deck was encumbered with fragments of timber; men were now and then falling, either killed or wounded, and a fatigue party was constantly engaged in removing the bodies.  There are people who consider such a spectacle magnificent; but that is only because they have never witnessed its horrors.

Already many immortal souls had returned to their Maker; many sons had become orphans, and many wives had been deprived of their husbands; but as yet there was nothing to indicate on which side victory was to be declared.  Soon, however, a cry of fire was raised, which caused great confusion; and another cry, announcing that the captain had fallen, increased the disorder.

A ball crashed through the taffrail, near where Jack and Fritz were standing; it passed between them, but they were both severely wounded by the splinters, and were conveyed by Willis to the cockpit.  The doctor, seeing his old friend Jack handed down the ladder, hastened towards him and tore out a piece of wood from the fleshy part of his arm.  He next turned to Fritz, who had received a severe flesh-wound on the shoulder.  When both wounds were bandaged, he left the care of the young men to Willis, who had escaped with a few scratches, which, however, were bleeding pretty freely—­to these he did not pay the slightest attention.

“How stands the contest?” inquired Fritz in a weak voice.

“The Hoboken is done for,” replied Willis; “the commodore was preparing to board when we left the deck; but it does not make much difference; we shall go to England instead of America, that is all.”

“God’s will be done,” said Fritz.

Just then Bill Stubbs was swung down in a hammock; both his legs had been shot off by a cannon ball.  The surgeon could only now attend to a tithe of his patients, so numerous had the wounded become.  A glance at the new comer satisfied him that he was beyond all human skill, and he directed his attention to the cases that promised some hopes of recovery.  Willis, seeing that his old comrade was abandoned to die almost uncared for, staunched his wounds as well as he could, fetched him a panniken of water, and performed a number of other little acts of kindness and good will.  This he did, less with a view of obtaining an explanation from him at a moment when no man lies, than to mitigate the pangs of his last convulsions.  For an instant the old mariner’s body appeared re-animated with life.  His eyes were fixed upon Willis with an ineffable expression of recognition and regret.  He convulsively grasped the Pilot’s hand and pressed it to his breast, and his lips parted as if to speak.  Willis bent his ear to the mouth of the dying man, but all that followed was an expiring sigh.  His earthly career was ended.