stagger, her very bottom ripped out by those terrific broadsides. All in a minute, every sail set, she plunged and sank down under the white-capped seas, and came to rest upon the shoals with only her topmast still showing, and her two hundred and thirty men spotting the water as they drowned.
"To the lines! All hands!" came the ring of Iberville's voice.
A lesser man would have been content; not he! Once more the guns began to crash, as the wounded frigate swept around and Iberville held her straight for the Hudson Bay. The Englishman headed up into the wind; his flag and foresail came fluttering down—surrender! The guns ceased. While the men yelled in mad exultation on her splintered icy decks, the Pelican drove on, hurtling straight for the third enemy.
The Dering, however, had no heart tor that meeting. She turned about, shook out her reefed canvas and was away like a bird in flight, pouring one last broadside into the victorious Pelican as she swung.
Bess Adams, clinging to the rail, heard Iberville groan aloud as he surveyed his bloody decks; then the ringing voice was up again, up and stirring his men. After the Dering tore the shot-shattered frigate, straight into the open water eastward, while men worked like devils to get the shot-holes stoppered against the gushing water. Out of the northeast was driving down a wild gale of snow and black clouds.
Bess Adams hung there at the rail, helpless, hurt, a spreading wetness of warm blood on her body. And suddenly she felt the arm of Iberville about her, his voice at her ear.
"Why, lad—you're hurt? Below with you, below; get the wounds dressed. Ha, brave eyes! I love you for this day's work! Below, and into dry clothes. Here, somebody! Give the lad a hand along the deck."
Below, then, and into hell, where men screamed and groaned under rude surgery, where blood ran like water, and hideous death was everywhere. When they would have stripped her to seek the hurts, Bess Adams flinched and fled away from it all.
In a dark corner she bared herself where none could see. She made shift to bandage the torn arm, and the bullet-scrape along her ribs; neither was dangerous, and the cut over her scalp was a mere nothing. She felt no pain at all. The touch of Iberville's hand, the quick warmth of his voice, was in her veins like heady wine.
And with it, another thought. It was the end; and she would meet it beside him, up on deck, facing death with level gaze.
They all knew it was the end, as the hours dragged on. The Dering escaped in the black smother of storm and Iberville headed around for Nelson; but there was no shelter or refuge from the approaching doom, and every soul aboard realized it. Snowflakes broke silvery on the wind and dead frozen faces peered from the scupper ice. Water was pouring into the riven ship, and the dark afternoon was deepening into stormy night.
Yes, it was a dear-bought victory. Men cursed or stared in frozen despair, with only the gay le Moyne voices like a ringing clank of steel to pluck up hopeless hearts. They found the surrendered Hudson Bay lying at anchor, miles offshore among the shoals; and as the night closed down, the Pelican also came to anchor, there to
