By this time, however, the whole fleet was in an uproar. Lights were dashing in every quarter of the horizon, and, as the darkness had been clearing away since our brush with the merchantman, our lookout aloft could see through the faint, misty distance, more than one vessel bearing down toward us. The majority, however, of the fleet, seemed to be struck with a complete panic, and, like a flock of startled partridges, were hurrying from us in every direction. It soon became apparent that the ships, bearing down upon us, were armed; and before we had been engaged ten minutes with our antagonist, no less than three men-of-war, from as many quarters of the horizon, had opened a concentric fire on us, regardless of the damage they would do their consort. Still, however, unwilling to leave his antagonist without compelling her to strike, our leader maintained his position and poured in a series of rapid broadsides which cut the foe up fearfully. Yet she would not strike. On the other hand, reanimated by the approach of her consorts, her men rallied to her guns and began again to reply to our broadsides. Meanwhile the hostile frigates were coming up to us, hand over hand, increasing the rapidity of their cannonade as the distance betwixt us lessened. Our situation was becoming momentarily more critical. Yet even amid our peril my eye was attracted by the sublimity of the scene. The night, I have said, had partially cleared away, but the darkness was still sufficiently intense to render the approaching frigates but dimly visible, except when a gush of fire would stream from their ports, lighting up, for the moment, with a ghastly glare, the smoke-encircled hull, the tall masts, and the thousand mazes of the hamper. Often the whole three vessels would discharge their broadsides at once, when it would seem for an instant as if we were girdled by fire. Then, as the smoke settled on their decks, they would disappear wholly from our sight, and only become again distinguishable, when they belched forth their sulphureous flame once more. In the west, the scene was even more magnificent, for in that quarter, was unexpectedly the nearest of the three men-of-war, and as she came up to us close-hauled, she yawed whenever she fired, and then steadily discharged her pieces, doing more damage than all her other consorts. The gallant manner in which she delivered her fire—the measured, distinct booming of her long twenty-fours—and more than all, the inky hue of the sky, in the background, brought out into the boldest relief, by the light of her guns, made up a picture of gloomy grandeur, which the imagination can compare to nothing, except the fitful, ghastly gleams of light shooting across the darkness of that infernal realm, which Dante has painted with his pen of horror. While, however, I was gazing awe-struck, on this scene, I noticed that the dark bank of clouds behind the frigate, was visibly in motion, rolling up towards us. Our superior officer had,