The rocks re-echo the crash five seconds after, but the echo is mingled with the yelling of the wounded and the drowning.
Ah! a right merry feast for the sharks, and Salook goes down with the bottomless boat.
The fight does not end with this advantage. Those Somalis are like fiends incarnate. Not even the rifles and revolvers can repel their attack. See, they swarm on the bulwarks round the bows, for the ship has swung head on to the shore with the out-flowing tide.
“Give it to them. The water now, boys. Warm them well!”
Oh, horror! The shrieking is too terrible to be described.
In their boats the unwounded try to reach the shore; but the rifles play on these, and they are quickly abandoned, for the Somalis can swim like eels.
“Now for loot, lads,” cries Tandy. “They began the row. Man and arm the boats.”
When the Sea Flower’s men landed on the white sands, led on by Tandy and Ransey, the conquest was easy. A few volleys secured victory, and the savages were driven to their crags and hills.
“Let us spoil the Egyptians,” said Tandy, “then we shall return and splice the main-brace.”
The loot obtained was far more valuable than the cargoes they had obtained by barter, and I need hardly say that the main-brace was spliced.