My fellow prisoners talked among themselves, using language that made me shudder.  I rested my head on my hands, stopping my ears and giving myself up to a dismal reverie.  From this I was suddenly startled by a dull report overhead, and a slight trembling of the vessel.

“Ads my life!” cried the mate:  “they’ve caught her.”

“Maybe ’tis another vessel,” said one of the men.

“Shut your mouth!” was the reply, “and list for an answer.”

In a few moments there came a muffled report through the timbers.

“There’s to be a fight, sure enough,” said the mate, “though what the captain can be a-thinkin’ of beats me altogether.”

“I would do the same,” I said, “and so would any Englishman worth his salt.”

“Then you’d be as big a fool as he is,” was the blunt retort.

It was a tantalizing position to be in.  Here we were, boxed up in the darkness, condemned to listen to a duel of firing at long range, without any means of knowing what its effects were, hoping that our countrymen would win, yet aware that if the vessels came to close quarters a shot might plunge among us and send us all into eternity.  We could tell that the vessel was racing through the water at a great rate, but, to judge by the reports that reached our ears, the distance between the combatants was not diminishing.  The alternation of shots continued for some time; then suddenly the ship swung round with a violence that threw us all in a heap, and caused me to bump my head hard against the wall.

“Helm’s hard up,” said the mate, “she’s going to try a broadside.”

And in a few seconds there was a thunderous roar above, and a shock that made the vessel stagger.  There was no reply save a single shock, from which I judged that the Dolphin was holding her course; and it was clear that the broadside had done little or no damage, for the ship again swung round, and the duel of single shots began again.  But we could tell that the vessels were now nearer to each other, and after a time we heard a series of dull reports, followed by a thud or two and the sound of rending and tearing woodwork above and around.  ’Twas a broadside from the Dolphin.  But before we had time to rejoice at the success of our comrades, or to hope that their shots had brought down enough of the French ship’s spars to disable her, the vessel shook again under a terrific discharge of her ordnance, and we, knowing how vastly superior was her armament to that of our own ship, were in no little anxiety as to the effect of this second broadside at shorter range.  Another and another broadside followed from each combatant:  and then came to our ears from the deck above a great yell of triumph.  My heart sank within me; the mate let out a volley of oaths; ’twas impossible to mistake the meaning of that shrill cry.