“I’m awfully sorry, I can tell you, old man,” said Charlie in sympathetic tones; “I didn’t know the poor fellow had lost the number of his mess. Lobb was such a general favourite that everybody on board the Rattler will miss him.”
“We’re close to the fort now,” I said, drawing my loaded revolver from my belt. “Let’s stick to each other, Charlie, and try to be first over the rampart!”
“We’ll make a dash for it at any rate!” shouted my friend excitedly. “Come along, Jack; try to think you’re winning a hurdle-race!”
Like an inrushing tide, determined to drive everything before it, our little naval brigade swept up to the attack, and with a ringing cheer threw itself, sword and revolver in hand, into the breach which the frigate had made with her shell.
A more diabolical set of men than those who clustered on the rampart to meet us I had never before seen. They were not in the least cowed by our determined attack, and met us with shouts of defiance and rage, some discharging pistols in our faces, and others pouring in volleys of musketry, which for a moment checked our advance.
But only for a moment!
Charlie and I did not succeed, much to our disappointment, in being the first to cross swords with the enemy. However, there was no time to think about such things at the moment, for our work was cut out for us, and a foe worthy of our steel, desperate and determined, was lining the earthworks to dispute our advance inch by inch and foot by foot. All our energies, and all our dogged British courage and persistence, were called into play at that supreme crisis in our fortunes; and well and valorously did our noble blue-jackets respond to our call.
As Charlie and I scrambled upwards, still mercifully unscathed, we caught sight of Mr. Thompson’s and the boatswain’s forms erect upon the rampart, looming huge through the smoke, and in a few seconds we had scrambled up beside them through a storm of bullets. Then was heard the sharp ringing clash of steel as we crossed swords with the desperadoes. As we had suspected, they had leagued themselves with a ferocious band of Creole insurgents, who no doubt anticipated sharing in the plunder of the Flying-fish.
Very soon after the mêlée commenced, I saw Charlie—who had got a little separated from me—seized by two of the mutineers, and, in spite of his violent struggles, thrown violently over the wall into the ditch. Much to the astonishment of an antagonist with whom I was crossing swords at the time, I disengaged myself from him and darted to the rear in search of my chum, much fearing that I should find him badly hurt. No doubt the piratical fellow I had been fighting with thought that I was fleeing from him in dismay; but fortunately he did not attempt to follow me. Nor did I meet with any obstruction by the way; for every moment our brave fellows were pressing forward and slowly but surely driving the enemy back, though the latter, to do them full justice, fought most tenaciously, and seemed little inclined to surrender.
It took me only a few seconds to rush down the embankment, and I at once caught sight of Charlie’s prostrate form extended motionless in the ditch. Close beside him lay the dead body of a seaman who had been shot through the head with a rifle-bullet just as we were about to rush the fort. In a moment I was at my friend’s side, half dreading that he might be dead too; for he lay motionless, with his white face upturned to the sky.