From its
decks the nine pounders were fired fast and often with precision, and the
majority of the Spaniard's desperate band found shelter there also, firing
with rifles, muskets, and pistols. Others sent bullets, also, from the
comparative security of port holes. The possession of the schooner gave
them a great advantage and they did not neglect it. Now and then they sent
up fierce yells, the war-cries of the West Indian pirates, and their
Indian allies answered them with their own long-drawn, high pitched whoop,
so full of ferocity and menace. Both looked forward to nothing less than
complete triumph.
The space between the combatants was lighted up by the incessant flash of
the firing. Little jets of water where a missent bullet struck were
continually spouting up, and then would come a bigger one when a cannon
ball plunged into the depths of the bayou.
Paul suddenly heard a heavy impact, a crash, as of ripping wood, and a
cry. A canoe near them had been struck by a cannon ball, and practically
broken in half. It sank in an instant, and one of the men in it, wounded
in the arm, and crippled, was sinking a second time, when Paul sprang
into the water and helped him into their own boat. But not all the wounded
were so fortunate.
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