The advantage of the first blow in the grim game, the unequal combat, was with the little one.
"How now, captain!" shouted the colonel, in high exultation. "Won't fight, eh! What do you call this?"
"Fire! fire! Let him have it, men, and be damned to you! The man 's a hero; 't was cleverly done," roared the captain, excitedly. "I retract. Give it to him, boys! Give it to the impudent rebel!" he roared.
Katharine, forgot by every one in the breathless excitement of the past few moments, bowed her head on her hands on the rail, and breathed a prayer of thankfulness, oblivious of everything but that her lover had proved himself worthy the devotion her heart so ungrudgingly extended him. There was great confusion on board the Yarmouth from this sudden and unexpected discharge, which, delivered at short range, had done no little execution on the crowded ship; but the officers rallied their men speedily with cool words of encouragement.
And the forty-odd heavy guns roared out in answer to the determined attack. The effect of such a broadside at close range would have been frightful, had not the Randolph drawn so far ahead, and her course been so changed, that a large part of it passed harmlessly astern of her. One gun, however, found its target, and that was one aimed and fired by the hand of Lord Desborough himself: a heavy shot, a thirty-two, from one of the massive lower-deck guns of the Yarmouth, which the pleasant weather permitted them to use effectively, came through one of the after gun-ports of the Randolph, and swept away the line of men on the port side of the gun. Some of the other shot did slight damage also among the spars and gear, and several of the crew were killed or wounded in different parts of the ship; but the Randolph was practically unharmed, and standing boldly down to cross the stern of the Yarmouth to rake her. But the English captain was a seaman, every inch of him, and his ship could not have been better handled; divining his bold little antagonist's purpose, the Yarmouth's helm was put up at once, and in the smoke she fell off and came before the wind almost as rapidly as did the Randolph, her promptness frustrating the endeavor, as Seymour was only able to make an ineffectual effort to rake her, as she flew round on her heels. The starboard battery of the Yarmouth had been manned as she fell off, and the port battery of the Randolph was rapidly reloaded again. The manoeuvre had given the Englishmen the weather-gage once more, the two ships now having the wind on the port quarter. The two batteries were discharged simultaneously, and now began a running fight of near an hour's duration.