They care but little—I am talking from my own experience—for ordinary round shot, if they are any distance off, in their dhows. From the cruiser's black side they can see arise a white cloud of smoke, with a spiteful tongue of fire in the centre; in a few seconds they hear the roar of the gun, and see the shot itself.
Well, they but utter a word of prayer to Allah, and ten to one the shot goes hurtling past high overhead, or it doesn't reach, but goes ricochetting past, half a mile astern perhaps, taking leaps of fifty yards at a time, throwing a cloud of foam up from every wave it strikes, till at last it sinks down to the slime of the fathomless sea.
If a cannon ball comes near enough to dash the sea-spray inboard, the Arab captain curses the British as heartily as he prays for himself, though he keeps cracking on.
But the shells, ah! the shells, that hiss and hurtle and fly into splinters in the air above the dhow, scattering death and destruction along its decks and poop; they will not yield to prayer, and I never yet saw an Arab captain who would or could stand the brunt of three or four well-aimed ones.
If one of these shells hit a mast, even if you are unwounded, the fall of that spar is something terrorizing to look upon, with its tangled rigging as well.
It does not come down quickly; it quivers and reels uncertainly for a time, while you gaze upwards and probably utter involuntarily a helpless moan.
It is coming down on you, and how can you escape death? More quickly, more and more quickly now, it descends. Then there is a crash, smashed bulwarks, and splinters flying in all directions. But, you are safe after all!
Captain Flint and his men had a good supply of shells, and it was lucky that the guns got up in time and were not damaged, for during the march there had been many small streams to cross, in which it was difficult at times to find a ford.
What wild yelling and shouting comes from the city now! Were it a large, compact town, with high houses and towers, Flint would shell it. But it were a pity to expend a shell in knocking a few grass huts to pieces, and scaring, killing, or wounding, perhaps, only helpless women and children.
"Just one other startler, sir,—shall I?"