Solid shot and grape and musketry they poured into her, and she gave back shot and grape and ball--but each time a little less swiftly, as her gunners died, and scurvy-smitten scarecrows staggered up from below to drag weakly at the guns. Foot by foot, it seemed, she was driven back, cornered and hemmed in, the three ships bearing around her like wolves around a stag at bay. Noon came and passed, but none thought of food. Crawford, following the anxious looks of Iberville, saw the storm-clouds sweeping blackly down, knew the wind was thickening, swung the helm grimly. Then, suddenly, from Iberville burst one shrill and frightful yell. “Wear, Crawford, wear--for the love of the saints, wear----” Crawford flung himself to help the St. Malo man at the helm. There upon them was bearing the _Hampshire_, driving full down the wind with obvious intent to ram and sink the battered _Pelican_. A huge ship was the _Hampshire_, a royal navy ship new and stoutly built, and Fletcher was on her quarterdeck. He had Iberville to reckon with, however, and he failed in his stroke, and Crawford saw him shaking his fist and cursing in furious rage as he lost the weather-gauge and was evaded. With this, the two ships ran down the wind yard to yard, so close that boarders gathered in readiness, so close that bulwarks almost touched at every sea, so close that English and French answered curse with curse, grenade with grenade--while the great guns thundered in broadsides that left each ship rocking and reeling and staggering down the rolling seas. Fletcher would not be first to draw off, nor would Iberville; so the guns roared, and men died, until a last crashing broadside sent the _Pelican_ up into the wind with half her rigging cut away and more than half the men in her waist mowed down by a storm of grape. In this moment she was theirs for the taking. But there was none to take her. Crawford, struck down by a splinter, was dragged to his feet by the shrill, terrible scream of dying men. He looked for the enemy ship, and saw only a welter of shattered masts and rigging; like a sounding whale she had plunged bodily, was gone all in an instant, down until she staggered upon the shallows and lay quiet with only her topmasts above water, and wounded men shrieking as they drowned. “Hard over!” shouted Iberville, and leaped to the helm. “At them, Bienville--fire!” Once more the guns crashed out, and now for the last time. As Iberville swooped upon her, the _Hudson’s Bay_ reeled up into the wind and lowered flag and foresail. The _Dering_, not waiting to face the Frenchman alone, shook out her reefed sails and went scudding away through the whistling tempest for Fort Nelson and safety. Iberville groaned as his gaze swept the red-frozen deck, while his ship bore down upon Nick Smithsend’s crippled frigate. Then he was at the helm, once more in action.