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First a shell burst in the street close to him, and two bystanders were struck down by the fragments; then another shell struck a house opposite, and covered the neighbouring space with splinters large and small; next a round-shot tore down the thoroughfare, carrying everything before it. It was no safer inside than out.
The Victory, as she approached the Bucentaur, fired a 68-pounder carronade containing a round-shot and a keg with 500 musket-balls, from the larboard side of her forecastle, right into the cabin-windows of that ship; and as she forged slowly ahead, the whole of her 50 broadside guns, all doubly and some trebly shotted, so as completely to rake her, killing or wounding as many men as the Bucentaur had lost, and dismounting 20 of her guns.
The larger boats were armed with guns in their bows, capable of carrying shell, grape, and canister, as well as round-shot. The crews were provided with muskets, pistols, and cutlasses; and all formed a pretty strong body, against which the Arabs were not likely to make any effectual stand.
I think the carrying of those heights one of the most creditable achievements in the war. The terrible handwriting of the God of Battles is still very plainly to be discerned; all along the mountain-side trees bent, blasted, and broken tell where round-shot or grape tore through; and scored bark, closing often over imbedded bullets, shows where beat most stormily the leaden hail.
I could not hide from myself the consequences, should he catch us; and yet I scarcely dared to hope that we should escape. We had expended, at last, all our round-shot, and the greater part of our powder, and we had to load with bags of nails and any langrage we could find.
At the signal given by the individual who had just stepped out of the ship's rigging and who was no doubt her captain eight hitherto closed ports in the stranger's bulwarks were suddenly thrown open, as many dark, threatening, iron muzzles appeared, and, at a second command, the whole eight blazed forth, and their contents, consisting of round-shot with a charge of grape on top of each, went hurtling through the air in the direction of the boats.
"Where is he, sir?" "Where he ought to be," growled the old man "powder-magazine o coorse." The eye closed: the little ray of soul, still haunting the body, seemed quenched for ever; but it was not. "And bring along a brace o round-shot when ye coom back, wilta?" came the painful voice out of the deeps. Kit slid down the companion ladder. The lower deck was half awash, and foul with smoke.
Thickly flew the round-shot the gallant Admiral in the Sandwich was engaged with two big Frenchmen, who seemed to have singled her out for destruction, but right nobly and boldly did she bear the brunt of the action. Shot after shot struck her, many between wind and water, and some in her masts and spars, which in consequence threatened to go overboard.
From all quarters came groans and cries, and the midshipmen could not resist stopping to afford some relief to the sufferers. Several Russians lay with their heads placed on the corpses of their brother soldiers; some had their arms, others their legs, blown away by round-shot. One poor fellow was still alive, though both his thighs had been thus broken.
Very Asiatic in appearance is Alcudia as one approaches it, with its yellow and white houses, its domes, its crumbling amber walls, with ragged date-palms scattered here and there, and dusty green clumps of prickly pear scrawming about everywhere. But as a walled city its days are done. The massive gateway with its pitting of Saracen round-shot has no guard.
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