"9.40. Our hulling fire telling. The enemy's battery fire slacking. His musketry fire very hot and galling. "9.45. The enemy badly hulled. More than half of our crew now killed or disabled. "9.52. Our main-mast by the board and our mizzen badly wounded. Action again very severe. Few of our men left. "9.56. Captain Blakeley killed and brought below. "10.01. Our mizzen down. The enemy's fire slacking again. "10.10. The enemy sheering off, with the look of being sinking. "10.15. The enemy sinking. We cannot help him. Most of our men are dead. All of us living are badly hurt." And there the entries came to an end. My breath came fast as I read that short record of as brave a fight as ever was fought on salt water; and when my reading was finished I gave a great sigh. It was a fit ending for the little _Wasp_, that death triumphant: and it was a fit ending to a fight between American and English sailors that they should hang at each other's throats, neither yielding, until they died that way--they being each of a nation unaccustomed to surrender, and both of the one race which alone in modern times has held the sea. XIX OF A GOOD PLAN THAT WENT WRONG WITH ME For a while I was so stirred by the enthusiasm which my discovery aroused in me that I had no room in my mind for any other thoughts. But at last, as I still stood pondering in the _Wasp's_ cabin, I became aware that the daylight was fading into darkness; and as I realized what that meant for me my thoughts came back suddenly to myself, and then all my enthusiasm ebbed away. I came out upon the deck again, but leaving everything as I had found it--my momentary impulse to lift the flag having vanished as I felt how fit it was that this dead battle-captain should rest on undisturbed where his men had laid him beneath the colors that he had died for; and I was glad to find when I got into the open that a good deal of daylight still remained. But it was so far gone, and was waning so rapidly, that I saw that I had little chance of getting back to the _Hurst Castle_ before nightfall; and that the most that I could hope for was to make a start in the right direction--and perhaps to find a wreck to sleep on that had food and water aboard of it, and thence take up my search again the next day.