Of another ancestor, too, he dreamed, the White Turk, ridden by Oliver Cromwell; and now he, Morgan, was taking part in a war under the saddle of his Lady’s soldier--for this reason an even greater personage than Captain Byerly or Oliver Cromwell! Long before dawn on the eleventh, his owner rode him out to watch the maneuvers on the lake from an eminence, for it now seemed that Morgan was not to take an active part in this battle. Commodore Macdonough had drawn his fleet up in two lines, forty yards apart, and as daylight came, and the morning advanced, the force weighed anchor and moved forward in a body. The wind was fair and at eight bells all was ready for the approaching enemy--not more than a league away. As the British ships came nearer the Americans swung their broadsides to bear--an intense stillness fell whose influence extended to the watchers on land. The “Saratoga” was silent--waiting--every man at his post, every nerve at the highest tension--some in fear, some in restraint, some in suspense--but every ear astrain against the rending of that awful silence. And suddenly it was rent! A cock, escaped from a coop, having mounted a gun-slide, on the “Saratoga,” stretched his neck, flapped his wings, and crowed! His defiance of the British was answered with a rousing cheer--the strain was broken--the depressed revived! It was an omen presaging Victory, the Americans said. Commodore Macdonough, himself, fired the first gun from the flagship. Death shrieked through the air, ugly and resistless; the ball fairly mowed down the men as it whizzed the entire deck-length of the “Confiance.” The men on the Saratoga shivered as the smoke lifted and they saw the devastation and the gallant enemy advance, without reply. Then at the distance of a quarter of a mile Captain Downie anchored and the other British vessels came to. The Americans continued to pound away--still the “Confiance” did not respond until secured. Then, with startling suddenness she seemed to point all her guns at the “Saratoga” and become a solid sheet of flame. The air rocked with the blazing of the cannon. This broadside, from point-blank range, carried destruction to its target. It came terribly, and in turn sang its death-song to the Americans through the morning air. When the eddying smoke cleared it seemed to Commodore Macdonough that he saw half his crew lying on the deck, stunned, wounded or killed by this one discharge--forty was the actual number, out of his two hundred and twelve men. Hammocks were cut to pieces in the netting and bodies cumbered the deck. But presently the “Saratoga” recovered and resumed her animated fire, steady as ever. Fifteen minutes after the enemy anchored an English vessel was captured, and on Crab Island where there was a hospital and a battery of one gun, the “invalids” took a second.