“Here,” cried Stan, letting his rifle rest on the top of the bale from which he had fired, “let me bind up the wound. Where are you hurt?”
“Hah!” exclaimed Blunt, as if mastering a spasm of pain. “Never mind me. Go on firing, my lad. Don’t you see how close they are in? Fire away, and shout to the others to keep it up. Stop them from loading if you can; it may scare the next junk from coming on.—Ah, that’s better!”
For the sounds he heard were pleasant to his ears. There was no need for Stan to shout, and he took up his rifle again in obedience to his orders and went on aiming at the men on the junk who seemed to be most prominent. Firing was going on all around, and from the upper windows of the warehouse as well, the consequence being that the men at the sweeps fell one by one; and then the two men handling the huge steering-oar dropped away, with the result that, instead of the great junk being laid alongside of the wharf for the pirates crowding her to leap ashore, they were carried on down-stream, with her captain and officers raging frantically, till the chief man received a bullet through one of his upraised arms and sank back into the arms of a subordinate.
Chapter Twenty Six.
“Fire Away!”
The leading junk was soon some distance down the river, the confusion on board from the steady rifle-fire, which caused man after man to drop, checking all efforts to recover the lost ground; but the second junk had taken its place, and those on board were pouring in a hot fire from two clumsy swivel-guns, consisting of showers of rough missiles, bullets, broken iron, and the like.
But little damage was done to the sheltered defenders, who, animated by the example set from the little bastion, kept up a steady, regular fire, with certainly more than half the shots telling among the Chinamen working the guns or giving orders.
In the intervals of his firing, however, Stan kept on imploring Blunt to let him summon help, or cease firing and attend to the injury.