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Piracy and smuggling had formed the historic past of all the villages that Ulysses was visiting, some huddled in the shelter of the promontory crowned with a lighthouse, others opening on the concavity of a bay dotted with barren islands girdled with foam. The old churches had turrets on their walls and loopholes in their doors for shooting with culverins and blunderbusses.
I saw a gleam of metal amid the green and four ship's culverins or demi-cannon mounted on rough, wheeled carriages and hauled at by wild-looking men, who toiled and sweated amain, for the way was difficult and their ordnance heavy; and amongst these men one very quick and active, very masterful of look and imperious of gesture, a small man in battered harness, and knowing him for Adam, I would have hailed him, but even then he was gone and nought to see but this writhing smoke cloud.
But before we had her free of the haven, they of the town had made means to bring one of their culverins, which we had dismounted, so as they made a shot at us, but hindered us not from carrying forth the prize to the Isle of Bastimentos, or the Isle of Victuals: which is an island that lieth without the bay to the westward, about a league off the town, where we stayed the two next days, to cure our wounded men, and refresh ourselves, in the goodly gardens which we there found abounding with great store of all dainty roots and fruits; besides great plenty of poultry and other fowls, no less strange then delicate.
From the top of the central tower of the gateway floated the royal banner, while at the very moment the party reached the foot of the hill, they were saluted by a loud peal of ordnance discharged from the side-towers, proclaiming that the King had arisen; and, as the smoke from the culverins wreathed round the standard, a flourish of trumpets was blown from the walls, and martial music resounded from the court.
'At the time of the assault, asked Beaupère, 'did you not tell your soldiers that you alone would receive all the arrows, bolts, and stones discharged by the cannon and culverins? 'No, she answered, 'there were over a hundred wounded; but, she added, 'I said to my people, "Be assured that you will raise the siege." 'Were you wounded? asked the priest.
Nevertheless, he found the gate of Sayes Court defended by men with culverins, as if it had been on the borders of Scotland, not in the vicinity of our court; and when he demanded admittance in our name, it was stubbornly refused.
The inner walls of the lower castle were well lined with falcons and falconets, while on the towers above peered out heavier cannon, which he took for culverins from their length of nose. Crossing the courtyard, they entered the building itself, and Muiertach led them through upward-winding corridors, studded with cressets and with here and there a recessed prie-dieu in the wall.
"I trust in heaven the sharks got the men who fired the culverins!" he cried, and then laughed at his own savagery. I lay still and tried to think. "Who are they on board?" I asked at last. "I don't know," he replied. "I was only on deck until my lord had had his say in the poop cabin with the master and a gentleman who appeared most in authority.
Dantes noticed that the captain of The Young Amelia had, as he neared the land, mounted two small culverins, which, without making much noise, can throw a four ounce ball a thousand paces or so. But on this occasion the precaution was superfluous, and everything proceeded with the utmost smoothness and politeness.
These cannons were eight feet in length; and as their mouths were large enough to hold a man's head, it was supposed that each of these terrible machines, scarcely known as yet to the Italians, weighed nearly six thousand pounds. After the cannons came culverins sixteen feet long, and then falconets, the smallest of which shot balls the size of a grenade.
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