With this slight deviation in their arrangements, the uneasy
party remained for several hours longer, impatiently awaiting the period
when they should be required to move.
The guns first fired from the Alacrity had been distinctly audible and
were pronounced by Griffith, whose practised ear detected the metal of
the piece that was used, as not proceeding from the schooner. When the
rapid though distant rumbling of the spirited cannonade became audible,
it was with difficulty that Griffith could restrain either his own
feelings or the conduct of his companions within those bounds that
prudence and their situation required. The last gun was, however, fired,
and not a man had left the vault, and conjectures as to the result of
the fight succeeded to those which had been made on the character of the
combatants during the action. Some of the marines would raise their
heads from the fragments which served them as the pillows on which they
were seeking disturbed and stolen slumbers, and after listening to the
cannon would again compose themselves to sleep, like men who felt no
concern in a contest in which they did not participate. Others, more
alive to events and less drowsy, lavishly expended their rude jokes on
those who were engaged in the struggle, or listened with a curious
interest to mark the progress of the battle, by the uncertain index of
its noise. When the fight had been some time concluded, Manual indulged
his ill-humor more at length:
"There has been a party of pleasure within a league of us, Mr.
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