Commodore Junk — page 205: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

192 COMMODORE JUNK. What followed was one terrible scene of despairing men striving for their lives against a foe of overpowering strength. The fierce fire of the schooner, as she came nearer and nearer, was feebly responded to, and in a short time the deck streamed with blood, as the shot came crashing through the bulwarks, sending showers of splinters to do deadly work with the hail of grape. There was no thought of capture now; no need of bidding the men attack : following the example of their officers, and one and all doggedly determined to sell their lives dearly, the men dragged gun after gun round as those they worked were disabled, and sent a shot in reply as often as they could. With uniform torn and bedabbled with blood, face blackened with powder, and the red light of battle in his eyes, Humphrey Armstrong saw plainly enough that his case was hopeless, and that, with all her pomp of war and pride of discipline and strength, his sloop was prostrate before the buccaneer’s snaky craft, and in his agony of spirit and rage he determined to wait till the pirates boarded, as he could see they would before long, and then blow up the magazine and send them to eternity in their triumph over the British ship. But it was to destroy his men as well, and he felt that this should be the pirates’ work when all was over. “No,” he muttered between his teeth, “it would be a coward’s act, and they shall die like men.” The schooner’s sides were vomiting smoke and flame, and she was close alongside now. She had been so mancuvred as to sail right round the end of the reef, whose position seemed to be exactly known, so that from firing upon the sloop’s bows, and raking from stem to stern, the firing had been continued as she passed along the larboard side round to the poop, which had been raked in turn, and here it was evident that the final attack was to be made. Tt was not long in coming. Hardly had Humphrey seen CONNIE OOOKS. EO