“To frighten us, I suppose,” said Stan.
“That’s it; and I don’t feel a bit alarmed. Do you?”
“Pooh! No; but I did feel scared when the charge of that big swivel-gun came rattling about us.”
“Yes, and with reason, too,” said Blunt quietly. “Their ragged bits of lead and scraps of iron make horribly painful wounds. I don’t want to get a touch of that sort of thing.”
The moment the booming of the gongs ceased, Blunt drew back and shouted to know if any one had been hurt by the discharge of the great swivel; but though he waited and called again, he had good proof in the silence that no one was injured.
“Do you hear there?” he cried again. “Is any one—”
His words were drowned by a roar from the enemy’s gun, almost accompanied by the snarl-like noise made by its great charge, which came hurtling against the chests and bales this time, though a good half spattered angrily over the front of the stones.
“We mustn’t let them have it all their own way, Lynn, my lad, or they’ll come on with a rush full of confidence and do too much mischief. Now then, the distance is easy. Look yonder in the front of the junk: what can you see?”
“Two men pulling out the rammer of the long swivel-gun, and another pointing it, as it seems to me, exactly at this loophole.”
“I don’t believe he is, my lad, but it looks like it.”