Page:Bacheller--D'ri and I.djvu/253

D'RI AND I Men lay scattered along the deck, bleeding, yelling, struggling. There were two lying near us with blood spurting out of their necks. One rose upon a knee, choking horribly, shaken with the last throes of his flooded heart, and reeled over. The Scorpion of our fleet had got her guns in action; the little Ariel was also firing. D'ri leaned over, shouting in my ear.

"Don't like th' way they 're whalin' uv us," he said, his cheeks red with anger.

"Nor I," was my answer.

"Don't like t' stan' here an' dew nuthin' but git licked," he went on. "’T ain' no way nat'ral."

Perry came hurrying forward.

"Fire!" he commanded, with a quick gesture, and we began to warm up our big twenty-pounder there in the bow. But the deadly scuds of iron kept flying over and upon our deck, bursting into awful showers of bolt and chain and spike and hammerheads. We saw shortly that our brig was badly out of gear. She began to drift to leeward, and being unable to aim at the enemy, we could make no use of the bow gun. Every brace and bowline cut