Both Barnstable
and his cockswain seemed instinctively to strain their eyes towards the
schooner, with an effort to surpass human vision; but ere the rolling
reverberations of the report of a heavy piece of ordnance from the
heights had commenced, the dull, whistling rush of the shot swept over
their heads, like the moaning of a hurricane, and was succeeded by the
plash of the waters, which was followed, in a breath, by the rattling of
the mass of iron, as it bounded with violent fury from rock to rock,
shivering and tearing the fragments that lined the margin of the bay.
"A bad aim with the first gun generally leaves your enemy clean decks,"
said the cockswain, with his deliberate sort of philosophy; "smoke makes
but dim spectacles; besides, the night always grows darkest as you call
off the morning watch."
"That boy is a miracle for his years!" rejoined the delighted
lieutenant. "See, Tom, the younker has shifted his berth in the dark,
and the Englishmen have fired by the day-range they must have taken, for
we left him in a direct line between the battery and yon hummock! What
would have become of us, if that heavy fellow had plunged upon our
decks, and gone out below the water-line?"
"We should have sunk into English mud, for eternity, as sure as our
metal and kentledge would have taken us down," responded Tom; "such a
point-blanker would have torn off a streak of our wales, outboard, and
not even left the marines time to say a prayer!--tend bow there!"
It is not to be supposed that the crew of the whale-boat continued idle
during this interchange of opinions between the lieutenant and his
cockswain; on the contrary, the sight of their vessel acted on them like
a charm, and, believing that all necessity for caution was now over,
they had expended their utmost strength in efforts that had already
brought them, as the last words of Tom indicated, to the side of the
Ariel.
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