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I have left sixteen of my men there under my boatswain, and have erected four batteries with cotton bales, each mounting two guns, which are charged to the muzzle with grape and langrage. I have every confidence, therefore, that the little garrison will be able to hold its own against a greatly superior force.” “It was a great risk,” the admiral said gravely.
On screwed the steamers, and on dashed the boats. They were soon up with the seventy junks, which began firing away, most furiously, round shot and grape and langrage; the latter, scraps of old iron, they were fond of using, and terrible are the wounds caused by it. The steamers and the boats returned the compliment.
They had been washed down from the mountains above, and were really jewels of some little value precious, indeed, I thought them. They had been wrapped up in paper. Grasping them all, I rolled them up with a pen-knife and pencil-case, and some small coin, and rammed them all down into the two barrels together a regular charge of langrage.
As the boats got within hail, Morton rose and ordered the crew of the felucca to throw overboard their weapons and yield, for they showed no flag which could be hauled down as a sign of surrender. The answer was a round of grape and langrage from three guns, and a volley of musketry. The missels flew, whizzing and whistling close to his head.
As Sir Henry and his boat's crew made the attempt, they were received with boarding-pikes and pistol-shots in their faces. The bow-gun in the boat was in return pointed up and loaded to the muzzle with musket balls and all sorts of langrage. It cleared a space on the deck, and before it was again occupied the English had possession of it.
I do not want her sunk, if it can be helped, for some of those for whom we are seeking may be aboard her; therefore our endeavour must be to sweep her decks clear of soldiers; and in order to do that I will have every piece of ordnance, both great and small, loaded with bullets, bags of nails, and any langrage that you can most readily lay hands upon.
"All right, Mistah Fortescue, sar," he said; "you no trouble. "But it no good, sar; he gone dead. Look dere." And he pointed to a ghastly great hole in the side of the skipper's head, just above the left ear, where a piece of langrage of some description had crashed its way through the poor fellow's skull into his brain.
Jack was quite ready to respond to the proposal. The two other boats boarded on the starboard side, amid a hot fire of langrage of all sorts poured down upon them. Hemming pulled up on the port bow, sprang up the side, and soon fought his way upon deck. Jack and Adair were climbing in at one of the ports when the pirates fired the gun through it directly over their heads.
One hundred barrels of beef constituted their whole store of provisions; and they were destitute of all other necessaries. They were almost wholly unprovided with water in the cisterns, with spare carriages for their cannon, match, wadding, and langrage; they had but a small stock of other ammunition; and the walls were in many parts decayed.
We had on this side also kept a port ready for firing through; and my gun being hauled round, we sent another dose of langrage among them. Numbers fell, as did many more from the shot fired at them from the loopholes and the stones hurled down on their heads.
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