"All is lost! Alas, all is lost!"
"The brigantines are returning to the open sea!"
"Captain Mirant flees without giving battle! without answering the enemy's fire! without giving back a single shot!"
"Come, let us return to our clams—henceforth the only resource of La Rochelle! Let us continue picking up clams!"
"No! My father is not fleeing from battle," answered Cornelia. "By sailing back he means to tow the dismantled ship out of harm's way. No, Captain Mirant is not fleeing from battle! Do you not see that his vessels are now lying to? They are not sailing away!"
The words of Cornelia, who was long familiar with nautical manoeuvres, thanks to the many voyages she made on board her father's vessels, revived the hopes of the Rochelois women. Their eyes returned with renewed anxiety to the entrance of the port. But, alas, as they did so, none perceived that soldiers of the royal army were coming out of the Bayhead redoubt, and, screened by the shadows cast by the rocks that were strewn to the right of the beach, were silently creeping nearer behind the massive blocks.
"What did I tell you?" Cornelia proceeded to explain. "The brigantines are sailing back again into the passage. The forward one, with the dismantled vessel in tow, is opening fire upon the royalist redoubt. No! Captain Mirant's cannons have not lost their speech!"
And so it was. The brigantine that had the dismantled vessel in tow sailed intrepidly into the passage, returning the enemy's fire from both broadsides. The enemy's redoubts, especially the Bayhead, being the better equipped, replied to the brigantine. Suddenly, however, a cry of terror escaped from all breasts. The brigantine that led was enveloped in a thick smoke which here and there was reddened by the ruddy glow of flames.
The agony of the women of La Rochelle redoubled. Their attention, held captive by the spectacle in the bay, prevented their noticing the Catholic soldiers, who, in increasing numbers, were approaching, hidden behind the last rocks of the ledge. Suddenly the echoes around the rocks repeated, like the reverberations of thunder, the roar of a tremendous explosion. The dismantled vessel, which carried a full load of powder, was blown into the air after being set on fire, not by the enemy, but by Captain Mirant himself; and, as it blew up, it partly dismantled the Bayhead redoubt. The manoeuvre was successful. Not only was the redoubt crippled, but a large number of the soldiers and cannoniers who manned it perished under the ruins of their own batteries. So soon as the intrepid mariner saw one of his vessels disabled from proceeding on its voyage, he had taken her in tow; veered about with the end in view of withdrawing his flotilla from the enemy's fire long enough to enable him to perfect his newly conceived strategy; heaped inflammable materials upon the disabled ship; left the powder in her hold; transferred the sailors to his own bottom; veered again; sailed under full canvas before the wind straight into the passage; and leading in tow the floating incendiary machine which he had just improvised, set it on fire, and cut the cable just before arriving in front of the redoubt, convinced, by his intimate acquaintance with the currents along the coast, that they would drive ashore and against the redoubt the floating firebrand loaded with powder, which, when exploding, would shake the royalist battery to pieces. It happened as Captain Mirant calculated. Once the redoubt was in ruins, Captain Mirant had nothing to fear except from the inferior battery raised on the opposite tongue of land. The bold mariner now proceeded on his course followed by his remaining vessels, deliberately answering the inoffensive shots from the opposite side. Finally, with only the perforation of some of their sails, and a few bullets lodged in their sides, the three vessels steered straight towards the entrance of the interior port of La Rochelle, which they were to save from famine, and re-supply with munitions of war.
"God be praised! The city is saved! May my father have come off safe and sound from the combat!" cried Cornelia, while the other Rochelois women loudly acclaimed with shouts of joy and hope the brilliant triumph of the captain.