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Instinctively we both looked towards the 'Dream' yacht, there was no illumination about her this evening save the usual lamp hung in the rigging and the tiny gleams of radiance through her port-holes, -and her graceful masts and spars were like fine black pencillings seen against the bare slope of a mountain made almost silver to the summit by the singularly searching clearness of the moonbeams.

The light of the burning vessel enabled the whole of the terrible scene to be clearly witnessed. Half the ships were partly or wholly dismasted, the rigging was cut to pieces, and the sails were riddled with balls. The splintered sides, bulwarks shot away, and port-holes blown into one, showed how terrible was the damage inflicted on both sides.

This time some of the savages succeeded in reaching the stockade and stopping up some of the port-holes. They cut down a part of the pickets too, and had their friends charged again at once, the fort would undoubtedly have been carried. As it was, Francis saw fit to draw off his men, for the time at least, and retire beyond the hill. What was now to be done?

So he decided on a frontal attack. When he thought he had a fair chance he stepped to the front and shouted, 'Now, boys, all together, rush! But before he could climb the barricade he was shot through the leg. For some time he propped himself up against a house and, leaning on his rifle, continued encouraging his men, who were soon firing through the port-holes as well as over the top.

The other soldiers I drove below, almost by main force, with the aid of their officers, who behaved exceedingly well, giving the men leave to fire from the open port-holes which lined the lower deck, almost at the water's level.

But their difficulties were not surmounted the fire now had communicated to the main-deck, and burst out of the port-holes amidships and the raft which had been forming alongside was obliged to be drifted astern, where it was more exposed to the swell.

"It's a snug berth, you see," said the Captain, stumbling among the dusty lumber, and knocking his head against the beams, "wants cleaning up, tho', and puttin' to rights a bit, but I'll soon manage that; and when I git the dirt and cobwebs cleared away, glass putt in the port-holes, and a whitewash on the roof and walls, it'll be a cabin fit for an admiral. See what a splendid view of the river!

And the wondering people saw at the back windows of the Court House and at the threatening port-holes more youngsters manning Winchesters, more at the windows of the jailer's frame house, which joined and fronted the jail, and more still a line of them running all around the jail; and the old men wagged their heads in amazement and wondered if, after all, a Tolliver was not really going to be hanged.

Twenty of them were to carry the port-fires, &c., &c. Those who had hand-grenades had short ladders to enable them to reach the port-holes, the exact height of which Colonel Burr had ascertained.

Every light inside of the boat is covered with a heavy black crape, and the port-holes and windows are so scrupulously and carefully chained down that the average open-air fiend from California or elsewhere feels that he will suffocate before morning comes, and even in the bitterest of winter weather I have known some fresh-air fiends to prefer the deck of the ship, with all of its bitter winds and cold, to the inside of a cabin with no windows open.