The tall, dark young gunner was as good a shot as ever drew lanyard, and he told a messmate before he addressed the commander that he was spoiling for a shot or two that would astonish the weak nerves of the niggers.
"Well, Mr. Gill," said Flint smiling, "just one other; but I want to spare the ammunition till we see the foe."
"Br—br—brang!" went the gun a few seconds after, and the great shell went shrieking away on its mission of death.
Louder yelling than before followed the bursting of this shell.
Still the enemy did not appear.
Some men would have stormed the town, and attempted after a rifle volley or two to take it at the bayonet's point.
But this Ju-Ju king, with his naked feet caked with the blood of the victims that he had walked among, had a force of fiendish soldiers at least ten times greater in number than Flint's sailors and the soldiers behind. With these the king over-awed the the neighbouring states, and carried fire and spear and sword into their midst if they owned not his superiority and greatness.
Two hours passed away and still they did not show face, though the blue-jackets were stamping on the ground, and itching to get at them. Waiting for a tight makes the bravest sailor or soldier nervous.
The cause of the delay was that Benin, being completely under the dominion of a set of bloodthirsty scoundrels of priests, there were fetishes or oracles to be consulted, and all kinds of mumbo-jumbo business to be gone through, before the Ju-Ju king's army could come forth. Oh, as for the king himself, his person was far too sacred to risk. The priests told him so, and he was by no means loath to believe it. Besides, he was so covered with beads from chin to ankle, that he had some difficulty in walking much.
Far better to stay in his harem, and listen to the yelling of his soldiers, the rattling of the musketry, and roar of the guns, until, as the priests assured him would be the case, the British prisoners—all that were not slain—should be brought in.