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Wives and children were there, secure, as they believed, behind the stout hearts and far and fast-shooting new breechloaders, trustful, too, of the Indians whom they had often fed and welcomed at their doors in the larger and less exposed garrison.
The delay, short as it was, had, however, enabled the 4th to come into line, and as the Abyssinians advanced they opened a heavy fire of musketry upon them with their breechloaders, which were here for the first time used by British soldiers in actual warfare.
The servants quickly handed the elephant breechloaders, and a double shot to the right and left was followed by the loud explosion of the picrate of potash shells against some unseen objects, either men or trees. A quick repetition of the picrate shells seemed to affect the spirit of the attack.
"Murderous weapon, and bloodthirsty shooter" some old-fashioned gunners of to-day will say, just as our grandfathers spoke when breechloaders came in, and that delightful pastime with ramrod and wads, powder flask and shot belt went out. So it ever has been!
'It was literally touch and go who should reach the village first, the Highlanders or the Afghans, who were streaming toward it 'like ants on a hill, but the men of the 72d swept in, and swarming to the house tops soon checked with their breechloaders the advancing tide.
In the grey dawn she had dropped into the embouchure of the Bidassoa, at a few hundred yards from the town of Fontarabia. The work was well and quickly done. Boats requisitioned by friends on land put off to her, and returned laden with bales of merchandise. These artless bales were packages of breechloaders, with bayonets to match, wrapped in sail-cloth.
'They'd be grown up by now if there was, wouldn't they? But you can't spend all your days considerin' 'is interests. That's what gave your pore aunt 'er indigestion. 'Ave you seen the gun-room? Midmore held strong views on the immorality of taking life for pleasure. But there was no denying that the late Colonel Werf's seventy-guinea breechloaders were good at their filthy job.
Then, unable to withstand the fire of our breechloaders and the effect of our shell, they fell back to the hills. Near the villages on the south side Major Stewart with thirty men of the 5th Punjaub Cavalry made a notable charge.
Every man of the reserves was hurried into the fighting line; the soldiers were steadied by the energetic efforts of their officers and settled down to a steady and continuous fire from their breechloaders; the guns poured their shells into the hostile masses; and the fire of the forty-pounders on the left effectually arrested the attempt of the Afghan horse to move round that flank.
The dangerous character of bears, in like manner with all other animals, was accredited at a time when breechloaders and high velocities were unknown, but with a '577 rifle and 6 drams of powder, or a No. 12 spherical and 7 drams of powder, I cannot conceive the possibility of escape for any bear or other creature below the standard of a buffalo, if the hunter is a cool and steady shot.
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