The _Richard_ is half its length across the bows of the _Serapis_--still helpless, sails a-droop! Suddenly, by a twist of the helm, Commodore Paul Jones broaches the _Richard_ to on the opposite tack, and doubles down on his prey. It is the beginning of the end. The jib-boom of the _Serapis_ runs in over the poop-deck of the _Richard_; a turn is instantly taken on it with a small hawser by Lieutenant Dale, who makes all fast to the _Richard_‘s mizzen-mast. The ships swing closer and closer together; at last the two rasp broadside against broadside, the _Richard_ still holding its way. As they grind along, the outboard fluke of the _Serapis_’ starboard anchor catches in the Richard’s mizzen-chains. First one, then another gives way; the third holds, and the ships lie together bow and stern. Commodore Paul Jones is over the side like a cat; the next moment he lashes the _Serapis_ to the _Richard_, and the death-hug is at hand. CHAPTER XVI--HOW THE BATTLE RAGED Commodore Paul Jones drops overboard his cocked hat. Orderly Jack Downes rushes into the cabin and gets another. Returning, he offers it to Commodore Paul Jones, who waves it away with a laugh. “Chuck it through the skylight, Jack,” he says; “I’ll fight this out in my scalp.” Then, glancing forward at the sailors, naked to the waist: “If it were not for the looks of the thing, I’d off coat and shirt, and fight in the buff like yonder gallant hearties.” There is a sudden smashing of the _Richard_‘s bulwarks, a splintering of spars; a sleet of shot, grape and solid and bar, tears through the ship! In the wake of that hail of iron comes the thunder of the guns--loud and close aboard! Commodore Paul Jones looks about in angry wonder; that broadside was not from the _Serapis_! “It’s the _Alliance!_” cries Lieutenant Dale, rushing aft. “Landais is firing on us!” Not half a cable-length away lies the Alliance, head to the wind, topsails back, half hidden in a curling smother of powder-smoke. There comes but the one broadside. Even as Commodore Paul Jones looks, the traitor’s head pays slowly off; a moment later the sails belly and fill, and the Alliance is running seaward before the wind. Commodore Paul Jones grits out a curse. “Landais! Was ever another such a villain out of hell!” The villain Landais makes off. There is no time for maledictions; besides, a court-martial will come later for that miscreant. Just now Captain Pearson, with his _Serapis_, claims the attention of Commodore Paul Jones. The tackle takes the strain; the lashings, and that fortunate starboard anchor of the _Serapis_, hold the ships together. Captain Pearson sees the peril, and the way to free himself. “Cut away that sta’board anchor!” he cries. Then, as a seaman armed with a hatchet springs forward, he continues: “The ring-stopper, man! Cut the shank-painter and the ring-stopper; let the anchor go!”