Each grabbed a tatter of the good flag, pressing hard upon D'ri, and put it to his lips and kissed it proudly. Then we marched up and down, D'ri waving it above us--a bloody squad as ever walked, shouting loudly. D'ri had begun to weaken with loss of blood, so I coaxed him to go below with me. The battle was over; a Yankee band was playing near by. "Perry is coming! Perry is coming!" we heard them shouting above. A feeble cry that had in it pride and joy and inextinguishable devotion passed many a fevered lip in the cockpit. There were those near who had won a better peace, and they lay as a man that listens to what were now the merest vanity. Perry came, when the sun was low, with a number of British officers, and received their surrender on his own bloody deck. I remember, as they stood by the ruined bulwarks and looked down upon tokens of wreck and slaughter, a dog began howling dismally in the cockpit. XVIII It was a lucky and a stubborn sea-fight. More blood to the number I never saw than fell on the _Lawrence_, eighty-three of our hundred and two men having been killed or laid up for repair. One has to search a bit for record of a more wicked fire. But we deserve not all the glory some histories have bestowed, for we had a larger fleet and better, if fewer, guns. It was, however, a thing to be proud of, that victory of the young captain. Our men, of whom many were raw recruits,--farmers and woodsmen,--stood to their work with splendid valor, and, for us in the North, it came near being decisive. D'ri and I were so put out of business that no part of the glory was ours, albeit we were praised in orders for valor under fire. But for both I say we had never less pride of ourselves in any affair we had had to do with. Well, as I have said before, we were ever at our best with a sabre, and big guns were out of our line. We went into hospital awhile, D'ri having caught cold and gone out of his head with fever. We had need of a spell on our backs, for what with all our steeplechasing over yawning graves--that is the way I always think of it--we were somewhat out of breath. No news had reached me of the count or the young ladies, and I took some worry to bed with me, but was up in a week and ready for more trouble, I had to sit with D'ri awhile before he could mount a horse. September was nearing its last day when we got off a brig at the Harbor. We were no sooner at the dock than some one began to tell us of a new plan for the invasion of Canada. I knew Brown had had no part in it, for he said in my hearing once that it was too big a chunk to bite off.