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Cludde and I, with our negroes, were upon them before they had time to collect their wits. And then ensued as pretty a bit of close fighting as ever I was engaged in. We laid about us right lustily with our clubbed muskets, and I will say for the black men that they were not a whit less doughty than the white.
"Phoebe, do you fire," and "no, Hetty, you," were beginning to be heard between the half-frightened and yet eager daughters of the squatter, when Ellen probably saved the advancing stranger from some imminent alarm, if from no greater danger, by exclaiming "Lay down the muskets; it is Dr. Battius!"
The others lay still where they had fallen, with their conquerors standing over them. The Indians had accomplished their task, so with grunts of satisfaction they stripped the slashers of their powder-horns, hunting-knives, muskets, and all the provisions they could find. Loaded with these, they sped back to their former place of waiting, where they cast their booty upon the ground.
Tete Rouge in utter bewilderment made his approach, with the gaping muzzles of the muskets still before his eyes. He succeeded at last in explaining his character and situation, and the Missourians admitted him into camp.
During this warfare, Patingi Ali, who, with his usual zeal, had here come up, bringing a considerable native force of both Malays and Dyaks, was particularly on the alert; and while we in the gig attacked the large war-prahu of Seriff Muller himself the resistance of whose followers was only the discharge of their muskets, after which they threw themselves into the river, part only effecting their escape the Patingi nearly succeeded in capturing that chief in person.
He only replied by a scornful laugh, but before he went on deck he put a brace of pistols in his belt, and I observed shortly afterwards that the mates had also armed themselves, while the muskets, cutlasses, tomahawks, and boarding-pikes were placed in a side cabin kept locked.
And if all the men who, since the beginning of the world, have mainly contributed to the warlike successes or reverses of nations, were now mustered together, we should be amazed to behold but a handful of heroes. For there is no heroism in merely running in and out a gun at a port-hole, enveloped in smoke or vapour, or in firing off muskets in platoons at the word of command.
The moment they did so, Leigh's horn sounded; and at once the defenders rushed up the hill, pursued by the Blues, with exulting shouts. But few shots were fired, for the assailants had emptied their muskets before striving to pass through the obstacle. Leigh and his men had run but a hundred yards into the wood when they met the main body of the peasants, rushing down at full speed.
While they gathered oysters for subsistence with one hand, they were obliged to carry their muskets for self-defence in the other. A great gun had been given to Florence O'Sullivan, which he placed on an island situate at the mouth of the harbour, to alarm the town in cases of invasion from the Spaniards.
There were a few elderly women in common colors; and a herd of young men and boys, some on foot and others mounted, followed them, or walked or rode by their side, frequently interrupting them by jokes and questions. But the most singular thing of all was, that two men walked, one on each side of the coffin, carrying muskets in their hands, which they continually loaded, and fired into the air.
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