Enoch was greatly excited at the outcome of this shot, so much so that he got upon his feet. He told himself that if one flint-lock would strike a man at that distance another might do it, too, and when the man fell he ran forward and knelt beside the sailor who had performed such a wonderful exploit.
CHAPTER XV.
HAULING DOWN THE FLAG OF ENGLAND.
"Ah! you have come with an old flint-lock, have you?" said the sharpshooter as Enoch knelt beside him. "Do you think you can hit one of those Britishers working about that gun? Now look here: Sight your gun right there," he continued, making a mark with his thumb nail across the barrel. "Of course if they were in any reasonable distance that would throw the ball away over their heads; but we don't want to kill them so much as we want to scare them. Now try it at that."
Enoch drew up his flint-lock and one to have seen him would have thought that he meant to shoot at the cross-trees. Just then a Britisher ran forward with a cartridge in his hand to insert in the gun, but Enoch was waiting for him. The flint-lock roared, and the man stopped, dropped his cartridge to the deck and hurried aft holding his right hand as if he were very tender of it. The old sailor had made his sights just right.
"That's the way to do it," he exclaimed, stopping in his progress of driving a ball home long enough to pat Enoch on the head. "Throw the balls about their ears. That will frighten them even if it does not hurt them, and what we want is to keep them from firing that gun. Now let me see if I will have as good luck as I did before."
"That is to pay him for capturing Caleb," said Enoch. "I wish I knew where he is now. I don't want to send my bullets into the hull for fear that I will hit him."
The sailor tried it again and with just as good fortune as he had the previous time. Another Britisher caught up the cartridge and was going to put it into the gun, but he also dropped it and lay on the deck where he had stood. By this time all the sloop's men who had guns were congregated in the bow, and before they had all fired one round the gun was deserted.
"I knew we would put a stop to that," said the man who had fired the first shot. "Hold her to it, Zeke. We are gaining on her."