The decks were sanded, the hammocks piled around the wheel, and there at the break of the poop stood the captain, trumpet in hand, turning now and then to give an order to Richard Dale or his midshipmen, quiet and composed, with the smile on his face men saw before the fight with the “Drake.” The clumsy hulk rolled to the ground-swell, and the creaking of the masts and clamping of the sheet-blocks were all that broke the silence of the night. No excitement was apparent, and the stillness seemed the greater for an occasional laugh from the gunners, or the rattle of a cutlass newly settled in its sheath. Then close aboard from out the blackness came a voice,-- “What ship is that?” Paul Jones moved to the lee mizzen-shrouds and slowly replied,-- “I can’t hear what you say.” He wanted all of his broadside to bear on the Englishman. “What ship is that? Answer, or I shall fire.” The moment had arrived. For answer Jones leaned far over the rail of the poop and passed the word. A sheet of flame flashed from one of the “Richard’s” after eighteen-pounders, followed by a terrific broadside which quaked the rotten timbers of the “Richard” from stem to stern. At the same time the guns of the “Serapis” were brought to bear, and her side seemed a mass of flame. [Illustration: “YARD-ARM TO YARD-ARM”] On the “Richard,” two of the eighteen-pounders burst at this first broadside, killing their crews, heaving up the deck above, and driving the men from the upper tier. The others cracked and were useless. In this terrible situation Paul Jones knew the chances for victory were against him, for he had thought his lower battery his mainstay in a broadside fight. But if he felt daunted his men did not know it, for, amid the hurricane of fire and roar of the guns, his ringing voice, forward, aft, everywhere, told them that victory was still theirs for the gaining. He ordered all of the men from the useless battery to the main deck; and it was well he did so,--for so terrific was the fire that the six ports of the “Bonhomme Richard” were blown into one, and the shot passed clear through the ship, cutting away all but the supports of the deck above. No one but the marines guarding the powder-monkeys were left there, but they stood firm at their posts while the balls came whistling through and dropped into the sea beyond. But the fire of Paul Jones’s battery did not slacken for a moment. There seemed to be two men to take the place of every man who was killed, and he swept the crowded deck of the “Serapis” from cathead to gallery.