Sustained honor Part 39

As the flames shot up, they revealed the _Xenophon_ slowly and carefully feeling her way into the bay. Not a shot was fired, for she was still far away.

Thus the night wore on. Day began to dawn slowly, and as the first light fell on bay and sea it revealed the dread enemy lying like a monster sea-bird in the bay, not a mile away.

The _Xenophon_ was in no hurry to commence. She had her prey so that there was no possible chance of escape, and the officers and men ate breakfast and walked about the deck, talking and joking on the work before them. Through a powerful gla.s.s, which Captain Lane furnished him, Fernando recognized Captain Snipes standing on the quarter deck, smoking a cigar.

Fernando had the guns loaded and shotted. They were sighted and ready when the _Xenophon_ should take the initiative.

"Say, Capen, dat Britisher doan git dis chile no more," said Job. "I can't find my real ma.s.sa, but, by golly, I've saved up fifty dollars to buy a new one, 'fore I go for to be a Britisher agin."

Before Fernando could answer, Sukey came running along the breastwork and said:

"Fernando! Fernando--he is there! Captain Snipes is aboard that ship!"

Sukey's face was deathly white, and his fingers convulsively clutched the air as if grasping at an imaginary throat.

Fernando was standing on the parapet, when a wreath of smoke curled up from the ship's side, followed by the boom of a heavy gun, and a ball came whizzing through the air, and struck the breastwork.

It was nine minutes after ten o'clock when the first shot was fired.

This shot was the signal for a broadside, and a shower of b.a.l.l.s with three or four sh.e.l.ls came screaming through the air striking the walls of the fort, or exploding over it. One of the sh.e.l.ls buried itself in the sand but a few feet from Fernando, and burst, scattering sand and gravel over him.

"Fire!" cried Fernando, without moving from his position.

Immediately the thirty-two pounder and four smaller guns belched forth fire and thunder. Fernando watched the effect through the gla.s.s. The thirty-two went wild, and the shots from the smaller pieces fell short.

He turned and gave some instructions to the gunners, while a sh.e.l.l came screaming over his head and burst a short distance away, killing one of the marines.

"Fernando, there ain't no need of you standing up there!" cried Sukey.

"You ain't in the game, till we get near enough to use rifles."

"Divil a bit will the blackguards iver come near enough for that," cried Terrence, boldly mounting the breastwork. "Captain, lave me have a squint through yer gla.s.s," and Terrence, a.s.suming a liberty which he only could, took the gla.s.s from his hand. The screaming sh.e.l.l and whistling shot continued to come from the _Xenophon_. "Faith, thim bees buzz nicely round a fellow's ears," added Terrence.

Fernando seized his gla.s.s, when the thirty-two was again sighted and fixed it on the ship. As the heavy boom shook the earth, he saw a great splash of water twelve feet from the bow.

"Let some one else train the gun," he cried. "You miss the mark."

All appeals to Fernando to come down from his dangerous position were unavailing. His anxiety to pierce the _Xenophon_ with the thirty-two kept him on the parapet directing the gunners, while b.a.l.l.s and sh.e.l.ls shrieked about him. Job tried three shots; but only one did any injury, and that was some insignificant damage to the rigging. Fernando saw at once their disadvantage.

"Oh, if we only had one experienced gunner, he would drive the ship from the harbor," he thought.

Lieutenant Willard tried three or four shots, and one struck the bow.

With gla.s.s in hand, Fernando remained on the earthworks, watching the effect of their b.a.l.l.s and giving orders to the gunners, while b.a.l.l.s and sh.e.l.ls flew screaming around him. One sh.e.l.l exploded near the embrasure of one of the smaller guns killing one and wounding four. As yet, they had not touched one of the enemy, and the young commandant was chagrined, anxious and annoyed. He lost his temper and raved at the gunners, who were doing their best. They lacked science.

His brave riflemen stood under the earthworks, grasping their guns which were useless now, while they lamented that the Britons were not in range.

Officers, citizens and even privates implored Fernando to come down. A sh.e.l.l exploded in the air, and a piece grazed his shoulder, yet he kept his place on the rampart. Terrence Malone, who could see no reason for courting death, had sought shelter behind a gun carriage. Fernando's anxiety and mortification increased as he witnessed the repeated failures of his gunners to hull the _Xenophon_. Amid smoke, dust and whizzing missiles, he kept his post. The thunder of guns, the whizzing b.a.l.l.s, and shrieking sh.e.l.ls were unheard in his great anxiety to defeat the British.

Suddenly a hand clutched his arm, and a silvery voice, which he recognized in an instant, cried:

"This is folly! Come down--come down from this certain death!"

"Morgianna, you here!" he cried. "For Heaven's sake, go to the bomb-proof shelter. You must not expose yourself here."

"I will not go a step until you come from the rampart." She clung to him, and appealed so earnestly, the tears of anxiety and fear starting from her eyes, while her white, pleading face was upturned to his, that he could not deny her. All other appeals had been unheeded, but Morgianna's he could not refuse.

A wild cheer went up from the Americans within the fort as Morgianna descended from the redoubt with the daring captain. He hurried her away to the bomb-shelter, where her father lay raging and fuming, because his infirmity would not allow him to take part in the contest. Fernando obtained a promise from Morgianna that she would not venture from the shelter, by promising in return to keep off the redoubt.

The British sh.e.l.ls were telling on the American fort. Though the walls were strong and resisted their b.a.l.l.s, several men had fallen beneath their sh.e.l.ls. Two solid shot and one sh.e.l.l struck Captain Lane's elegant mansion on the hill, fired from spite, as the house was far removed from the fort, and no one was near it. A cannon-ball entered the great, broad bay window overlooking the sea, made a wreck of the furniture in the parlor, crashed through the wall, shivering a tall mirror and spreading havoc in the room beyond.

The siege continued all day long, and late in the afternoon, just one hour before sunset, the redcoats appeared on the wooded hill back of the town, and opened fire with two small pieces and muskets. 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 sh.e.l.ls, 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 sh.e.l.ls. 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 sh.o.r.e, then let go her anchors again and lay broadside to the fort. It was quite evident that she was afraid to come too close, lest some blundering shot would strike her.

All of a sudden, a sheet of flame and cloud of smoke from her side concealed the ship from view, and b.a.l.l.s once more rained about the fort.

The fire this day was more destructive than on the preceding. One house within the enclosure was completely battered down. The church which had been converted into a hospital was set on fire. Fernando discovered it in flames and ran thither to hurry out the wounded. Entering the burning building, through which a sh.e.l.l went screaming, he was horror-stricken and amazed to find Morgianna at one of the bunks, binding up the wounds of a sufferer.

"Morgianna, Morgianna!" he cried, "why do you risk your life here?"

"There is suffering and death here!" she answered. "Am I better than those who risk their lives for me?"

"Morgianna, you must not, yours is no common life--" he began. In the excitement of the moment he almost forgot himself. She was about to answer, when he said, "n.o.ble woman! do not, for Heaven's sake, run needless danger."

They hurried the wounded from the burning building. Another house, lower down the hill, was also on fire. It was so near to the great gun, that the heat almost blistered the men who worked it, and for awhile their magazine was in great peril.

The soldiers did all in their power to extinguish the flames; but both church and house burned to the ground.

Night came once more, and the Americans were reduced to the sorest straits. Soon after dark, the cannonading ceased and a silence of death fell over the fort, broken only by the groans of some poor, wounded fellow. The people within the fort went about talking in whispers. Three bodies, which they had not had time to bury, lay, stark and silent under the shed, and there were nine fresh graves on the hillside. In addition, more than thirty of the defenders were disabled from wounds.

Captain Stevens, Sukey, Terrence and Lieutenant Willard were holding a consultation in a room of the old tavern. Lieutenant Willard said:

"Captain Stevens, there is no other alternative, we must surrender. To hold out longer is murder. If we had a few competent gunners we might drive her away, but with our inexperienced men, we are wasting ammunition and life to resist."

"There is one chance," said Fernando. "Perhaps we could carry the ship by the board."

"By the board! divil a bit!" put in Terrence. "Why they'd sink us all before we could get within a hundred yards of the plagued ship."

Sukey, remembering that Captain Snipes, his avowed enemy, was on board the _Xenophon_, was eager to make the effort to carry her by the board.

"It will be a desperate undertaking," said Lieutenant Willard. "If we had sailors instead of riflemen it might be done very easily; but it is a desperate chance; yet we are in a desperate situation."

"And faith ye'll come to a desperate end, if ye thry to carry that ship by the board," interrupted Terrence.

Fernando mustered three hundred men and, ascertaining there were boats to take them to the _Xenophon_, was about to give the orders to march to the water, when, suddenly, volley after volley of muskets and pistols rang out from the ship. The Americans had pa.s.sed from the works and were drawn up on the sands. When they heard the firing at the _Xenophon_, they came to a halt, to guess and wonder at the cause.

It was decided to march the men by a round-about course to the promontory and embark in boats for the ship. By doing this, they could come upon the vessel from the side opposite to the fort, and effect a more complete surprise. Two dozen bold fishermen were entrusted to take the boats along the rocky sh.o.r.e to the point of embarkation. The night was quite dark, and, the water rough, so it required great skill to accomplish this difficult feat.