The question of nationality was decided the moment that I set my foot within the cabin doorway--there being a good deal of light there, coming in through the broken stern--by my seeing stretched over a standing bed-place in a state-room to starboard an American flag; and the flag, taken together with the ancient build of the sloop, also settled the fact pretty clearly that the action which had finished her must have been fought with an English vessel in the War of 1812. Under the flag I could make out faintly the lines of a human figure, and I knew that one of the sloop's officers--most likely her commander, from the respect shown to him by covering him with the colors--must be lying there, just as his men had placed him to wait for a sea-burial until the fighting should come to an end. And that he had remained there was proof that not a man of the sloop's company but had been killed outright in the fight or had got his death-wound in it; and also of the fact that in a way the fight had been a victory--since it was evident that the enemy had not taken possession, and therefore must have been beaten off. But the whole matter was settled clearly by my finding the sloop's log-book lying open on the cabin table, just as it had lain there, and had entries made in it, while the action was going on. And a very strange thrill ran through me as I read on the mouldy page in brown faint letters the date, "October 5, 1814," and across the page-head, in bigger brown faint letters: "U.S. Sloop-of-war _Wasp_": and so knew that I was aboard of that stinging little war-sloop--whereof the record is a bright legend, and the fate a mystery, of our Navy--which in less than three months' time successively fought and whipped three English war-vessels--the ship _Reindeer_ and the brigs _Avon_ and _Atalanta_, all of them bigger than herself--and then, being last sighted in September, 1814, not far from the Azores, vanished with all her crew and officers from off the ocean and never was seen nor heard of again. There before me in the mouldy log-book was the record of her last action--and in gallantry it led the three others which have made her fame. The entries began at 7.20 A.M. with: "A strange sail in sight on the weather bow;" at 7.45 followed: "The strange brig bearing down on us. Looks English"; and at 8.10: "The strange brig has shown English colors." Then came the manoeuvring for position, covering more than an hour, and the beating to general quarters; and after that the short entries ran on quickly--in such rough and ready writing as might be expected of a man dashing in for a moment to make them, and then dashing out again to where the fighting was going on: "9.20 A.M. Engaged the enemy with our starboard battery, hulling him severely. "9.24. Our foremast by the board. "9.28. The enemy's broadside in our stern. Great havoc. "9.35. The wreck of the foremast cleared, giving us steerage way.