“See!” he cries, addressing Jack Downes, who being from New Hampshire understands never a word of Pierre’s French, albeit he takes it in, open-mouthed, like spring water; “See! He springs among them like a tiger among calves! Ah, they respond to him! Yes, in an instant he arouses their courage! They look upon him--him, who has bravery without end! Name of God! To see him is to become a hero!” It is as the excitable little Pierre recounts. The French marines, lately so cowed, look upon Commodore Paul Jones to become heroes. With shouts and cries they crowd about him valorously. He directs their fire against the English, who man the long-nines in the open waist of the _Serapis_. The fire of the recovered Frenchmen drives those English from their guns. Thereupon the French go wild with a fierce joy, and are all for boarding the _Serapis_. Commodore Paul Jones has as much trouble restraining them from rushing forward as he had but a moment before to keep them from falling back. Captain Pearson has never taken his eyes from that fatal starboard anchor, holding him fast to the _Richard_. There it lies, his own anchor--the key-stone to the arch of his ruin! If it take every English life aboard the _Serapis_, it must be cut away! He orders four men forward in a body, to cut shank-painter and ring-stopper. There comes an instant volley from the recovered French marines, led by Commodore Paul Jones, who fires with them. Before that withering volley the four hatchet-men fall in a crumpled, bloody heap. The fatal anchor still holds; the ships grind side by side. Captain Pearson orders forward more men, and still more men, to cut away that anchor, which is as an anchor of death, tying him broadside and broadside to destruction. Fourteen men die, one across the other, under the fire of Commodore Paul Jones and his French marines--each of the latter being now a volcano of fiery valor! The last to perish is Lieutenant Popplewill; he dies honorably at the hands of Commodore Paul Jones himself, who sends a musket ball through the high heart of the young dreadnought just as he reaches those fatal fastenings. While this labor of death and bloody slaughter goes on above, the smashing work of the _Serapis_’ eighteen-pounders has not ceased between decks. As the two ships come together, the lower-tier gun crews of the _Serapis_ are shifted from the port to the starboard batteries. They attempt to run out the guns, and are withstood by the port-lids, which refuse to be triced up, the _Richard_ grinding them so hard and close as to hold them fast. “What!” cries Lieutenant Wright, who has command of the _Serapis_’ eighteen-pounders; “the ports won’t open? Open them with your round-shot, then, my hearties! Fire!” And so the broadside of the _Serapis_ is fired through its own planks and timbers, to open a way to the _Richard_.