"Here they are!" cried Stewart, and his exclamation was drowned with a broadside, for the gunners of the _Constitution_ had discovered that the headmost ship was just abreast of them and but a hundred feet away. The sternmost was luffing up with the intention of reaching the _Constitution's_ quarter. The smoke from the big guns had hidden everything again, but orders were now coming fast from the quarter-deck. Men were hastening aloft, and others were tailing on to the braces, tacks, and sheets. The main and mizzen top-sails were braced aback against the mast, and slowly the _Constitution_ began to move stern foremost through the water. It was as if nowadays the order had come to reverse the engines at full speed. All the sailors saw the importance of this act. They were cheering now, and they had good right to do so. Instead of finding herself on the larboard side and in good position for raking, the English vessel was in a very bad position. It must have astonished her commander to find himself so unexpectedly confronted, but he was directly beneath the _Constitution's_ guns again. There was no help for it. He was forced to receive her fire. The big sloop of war, which had been deserted so unceremoniously, kept on making a great hubbub, aiming at the place where she supposed the Yankee frigate yet to be. To repeat all the details of the rest of the struggle would be but to recount a tale filled with the detailed working of a ship and nautical expressions, but it is safe to state that never was a vessel better handled, and never did a captain win a title more honestly than did Charles Stewart the sobriquet of "Fighting Stewart." It was ten minutes of seven in the evening when the first English vessel struck her flag. She proved to be His Britannic Majesty's sloop of war _Cyane_, under the command of Captain Gordon Falcon, a gallant officer, and one who had earned distinction in the service. His ship, that he had fought bravely, mounted thirty-four guns. He was so overcome with emotion at having to surrender, that he could scarcely return Captain Stewart's greeting when he came on board, for he had entered the fight declaring that he was going to receive the Yankee's sword. As soon as he had placed a prize crew on board the _Cyane_, Stewart headed the _Constitution_ for the other sloop of war, who was doing her best to get away. So fast did he overhaul her that the _Levant_--for that was her name--turned back to meet her big opponent, and bravely prepared to fight it out. But it was no use, and after some firing and manoeuvring Captain George Douglass struck his colors, as his friend Falcon had been forced to do some time earlier.