At this point, a third party, the Scarborough, drew near, seemingly desirous of giving assistance to her consort.  But thick smoke was now added to the night’s natural obscurity.  The Scarborough imperfectly discerned two ships, and plainly saw the common fire they made; but which was which, she could not tell.  Eager to befriend the Serapis, she durst not fire a gun, lest she might unwittingly act the part of a foe.  As when a hawk and a crow are clawing and beaking high in the air, a second crow flying near, will seek to join the battle, but finding no fair chance to engage, at last flies away to the woods; just so did the Scarborough now.  Prudence dictated the step; because several chance shot—­from which of the combatants could not be known—­had already struck the Scarborough.  So, unwilling uselessly to expose herself, off went for the present this baffled and ineffectual friend.

Not long after, an invisible hand came and set down a great yellow lamp in the east.  The hand reached up unseen from below the horizon, and set the lamp down right on the rim of the horizon, as on a threshold; as much as to say, Gentlemen warriors, permit me a little to light up this rather gloomy looking subject.  The lamp was the round harvest moon; the one solitary foot-light of the scene.  But scarcely did the rays from the lamp pierce that languid haze.  Objects before perceived with difficulty, now glimmered ambiguously.  Bedded in strange vapors, the great foot-light cast a dubious, half demoniac glare across the waters, like the phantasmagoric stream sent athwart a London flagging in a night-rain from an apothecary’s blue and green window.  Through this sardonical mist, the face of the Man-in-the-Moon—­looking right towards the combatants, as if he were standing in a trap-door of the sea, leaning forward leisurely with his arms complacently folded over upon the edge of the horizon—­this queer face wore a serious, apishly self-satisfied leer, as if the Man-in-the-Moon had somehow secretly put up the ships to their contest, and in the depths of his malignant old soul was not unpleased to see how well his charms worked.  There stood the grinning Man-in-the-Moon, his head just dodging into view over the rim of the sea:—­Mephistopheles prompter of the stage.

Aided now a little by the planet, one of the consorts of the Richard, the Pallas, hovering far outside the fight, dimly discerned the suspicious form of a lonely vessel unknown to her.  She resolved to engage it, if it proved a foe.  But ere they joined, the unknown ship—­which proved to be the Scarborough—­received a broadside at long gun’s distance from another consort of the Richard the Alliance.  The shot whizzed across the broad interval like shuttlecocks across a great hall.  Presently the battledores of both batteries were at work, and rapid compliments of shuttlecocks were very promptly exchanged.  The adverse consorts of the two main belligerents fought with all the rage of those fiery seconds who