And mean time on the
gunboat some were shouting to 'em not to be a pack of cowards--for
the crew on board could see us on the platform (which the others
couldn't) and that we were only two--and others were running to cut
her cable, seeing the gun trained on 'em and not staying to think
that the wind was light and the current setting straight onshore.
And in the midst of this Sir John finds a fresh fuse, and lights it
from the old one, and bang! says we.
"It took her plump in the stern-works, knocking her wheel and
taffrail to flinders and ripping out a fair six feet of her larboard
bulwarks. This much I saw while the smoke cleared; but Sir John was
already calling for the reload. The Genoese by good luck had left a
rammer; and the pair of us had charged her and were pushing home shot
number two as merry as crickets, when we heard a horn blown on the
hill above us, and at the same instant spied a body of Corsicans on
the beach below, marching towards us from the town.
"Well, Sir John decided that we might just as well have a second shot
at the boat while our hand was in; and so we did, but trained it too
high in our excitement and did no damage beyond knocking a hole in
her mainsail.
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