At this moment most of the brown fellows were loafing in the trench. Only occasionally one of them showed himself, raising his gun quickly and firing toward the house. The planter's return fire did not come toward Prescott's command, but well to the right of the soldiers.
"The Moros are up to their same old rascally tricks," whispered Lieutenant Prescott to Sergeant Hal Overton. "They fire heavily, once in a while, and then pepper the house occasionally with single shots. Their idea is to keep those in the house firing until the defenders have used up all their ammunition. When the Moros are satisfied that Seaforth's party have no more cartridges, then those brown pirates plan to rush the house, with little loss to themselves, and run creeses through every defender left alive."
A moment later Prescott's order was repeated down the line of soldiers, now lying prone on the ground:
"Load magazines! Remember to fire low. At the pistol shot begin firing at will, but keep cool and try to make every cartridge tell. Better to shoot slowly than to waste any ammunition."
As noiselessly as they could the prostrate men opened the magazines of their rifles and slipped the cartridges in.
Lieutenant Prescott, revolver in hand, waited until he saw that all had had time to obey the order. Then the stick, now in his left hand, pointed forward, and the various squad leaders whispered:
"At four hundred yards, aim!"
It was a tense moment for the new men.
Bang! Lieutenant Prescott's revolver rang out, the muzzle pointed toward the enemy.
Instantly following it came a sputtering of reports, then a settled, heavy fire. The noise of so many soldiers firing at will was like that made on Fourth of July by a hundred packs of cannon crackers all going off at once.