The Wing-and-Wing; Or, Le Feu-Follet

by James Fenimore Cooper

A cry arose from the dense shroud of battle that differed from the shouts of success and courage. Physical agony had extorted shrieks from the stoutest hearts, and even the French in the ruins paused to look for the next act of the desperate drama. Raoul seized the opportunity to prepare for the expected hand-to-hand struggle; but it was unnecessary. The cessation in the firing was common in both parties, and it gave the vapor a minute in which to lift the curtain from the water.

When the late obstacle was raised high enough to admit of a view, the result became evident. All the English boats but one had scattered, and were pulling swiftly, in different directions, from the scene of slaughter. By taking this course, they diverted and divided the fire of the enemies; an expedient of which it would have been happier had they bethought them earlier. The remaining boat was a cutter of the Terpsichore. It had received the weight of canister from Ithuel's own gun, and of sixteen men it had contained when it left the frigate's side, but two escaped. These fellows had thrown themselves into the sea, and were picked up by passing boats. The cutter itself came drifting slowly in toward the rock, announcing the nature of its fearful cargo by the groans and cries that arose from out its bosom. Raoul stopped the fire, equally from humanity and policy, after a few discharges at the retreating boats; and the first act of the battle closed.

The breathing time gave both parties a desirable opportunity for ascertaining in what positions they were left. In the whole, the French had lost the services of eleven men; all, with the exception of Ithuel's four, in the ruin. The loss of the English amounted to thirty-three, including several officers. The master's mate who had commanded the crippled cutter lay over its stern, flat on his back, with no less than five musket-balls through his chest. His passage into another state of existence had been sudden as the flight of the electric spark. Of his late companions, several were dead also; though most were still enduring the pain of fractured bones and bruised nerves. The boat itself slowly touched the rocks, raising fresh cries among the wounded by the agony they endured from the shocks of rising and falling under the ground-swell.

Raoul was too deliberate, and too much collected, not to feel his advantage. Anxious to keep his means of further defence in the best condition, he directed all the guns to cease, and the damages to be repaired. Then he went with a party toward the boat that had fallen into his hands. To encumber himself with prisoners of any sort, in his actual situation, would have been a capital mistake, but to do this with wounded men would have been an act of folly. The boat had tourniquets and other similar appliances in it, and he directed some of the French to use them on those that wanted them most. He also supplied the parched lips of the sufferers with water; when, conceiving that his duty was performed, he gave an order to haul the boat on one side, and to shove it forcibly out of the line of any coming conflict.

"Halloo, Captain Rule!" called out Ithuel, "you are wrong there. Let the boat lie where it is, and it will answer a better turn than another breastwork. The English will scarcely fire through their own wounded."

The look that Raoul cast toward his auxiliary was fierce--even indignant; but, disregarding the advice, he motioned for his own men to obey the order he had already given them. Then, as if mindful of Ithuel's importance, his late timely succor, and the necessity of not offending him, he walked to the side of the islet nearest to the felucca, and spoke courteously and cheerfully to him whose advice he had just treated with indifference, if not with disdain. This was not hypocrisy, but a prudent adaptation of his means to his circumstances.

"Bon, brave Etooelle," he said, "your bags of bullets were welcome friends, and they arrived at the right moment."

"Why, Captain Rule, in the Granite country we are never wasteful of our means. You can always wait for the white of Englishmen's eyes in these affairs. They're spiteful devils, on the whull, and seem to be near-sighted to a man. They came so clus' at Bunker Hill, our folks--"

"Bon," repeated Raoul, feeling no wish to hear a thrice-told tale gone through again, Bunker Hill invariably placing Ithuel on a great horse in the way of bragging; for he not only imagined that great victory a New England triumph, as in fact it was, but he was much disposed to encourage the opinion that it was in a great measure "granite." "Bon," interrupted Raoul--"Bunkair was good;--mais, les Roches aux Sirens is bettair. If you have more de ces bulles load encore.

"What think you of this, Captain Rule?" asked the other, pointing up at a little vane that began to flutter at the head of one of his masts. "Here is the west wind, and an opportunity offers to be off. Let us take wit, and run!"