Fernando's
riflemen had been waiting for this, and, with wild yells, they leaped
the redoubts, deployed along the stone fences and houses and picked off
the redcoats so rapidly, that they fled pell mell to their own works,
glad to escape the bullets of those unerring riflemen.
The cannonade kept up until long after midnight. The sky was ablaze with
circling shells, and the headlands reverberated with ten
thousand echoes.
All the guns in the fort save the thirty-two were silent, for the
smaller cannon at that range were useless. The soldiers in the fort lay
on their arms, and Fernando slept none. With anxious face he went the
rounds of the fort, occasionally watching through an embrasure the ship
beyond and the circling shells. During the night, three more of their
number were killed and six wounded, while as yet they had done the
enemy no hurt.
Shortly after midnight, the firing grew slower and an hour later ceased
altogether. Morning dawned slowly, and the flag still floated over the
badly battered fort. A sullen, gloomy silence had fallen over the
officers and men. They watched the enemy, who at daylight began to warp
the ship in a little nearer, that her guns might be more effective.
Fernando was silent and his brow dark. There seemed but one thing
possible and that was defeat. Reinforcements need not be expected.
The _Xenophon_ came a little nearer to shore, then let go her anchors
again and lay broadside to the fort.
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