The triple rain of lead had cut a wide swath in the Indians’ ranks, but they never seemed to heed, and came on as fiercely as at first. They were so near now that when the men tried to draw back the discharged guns from the loops some of the enemy seized them by the barrels and tried to pull them through the slits.
By this time the women had the first lot of muskets reloaded. It was almost our last hope.
“Fire!” I called again, drawing my sword, in anticipation of a rush of savages over the palisade.
The fourth volley pealed out. As the smoke rolled away I saw a few hideous faces, surrounded with feathers, thrust over the top of the logs. The men in the tower fired, and they dropped back.
Four more of our men fell away from the loops; three dead, the other sorely wounded. The remainder of the defenders seized the muskets they had fired the second time, which would have made the fifth round. If it went out, and did not stay the assault, then it was all over with us.
But it did.
I peered out and saw the Indians on a dead run for the forest. They had enough of the white man’s leaden medicine. And they did not stop to take their dead with them, in such great haste were they. But they could scarce have done so, had they desired, for the dead far outnumbered the living. Our volleys had mowed them down as a reaper does the ripe grain.
For a time we were safe, but at great cost, for we had lost ten men, and there was much sorrow in the block.
CHAPTER XXV.
IN THE NAME OF THE KING.
Captain Carteret and I clasped hands when we saw that the enemy had been repelled for the time. They hardly would renew the fight for a few hours, I thought, and we would have a chance to rest and get something to eat, for it was now afternoon, and we all knew that breakfast had been a long way back. So leaving a sentinel on guard at each face of the palisade, we sent the other men away. Carteret and I went to his quarters.