Noah had the first carronade on the right—that is, abreast of the mainmast. Stooping down, he trained it carefully, elevating and then slightly depressing the muzzle till he covered the object. He then smartly withdrew, lowered the match, and the recoil and report of the gun was followed by a yell from the Malays, whose rowers were seen tumbling from side to side, as if making summersets; for the shot, with its scattering accompaniment of broken bottles, made a complete lane from stem to stern, through the dingy occupants of the proa.
The echoes of the gun, with the cries of the Malays, rung with a thousand reverberations amid the rocks of the creek, startling clouds of wild birds from the mangroves and cane-brake beyond them.
"Fire number two—steady, Captain Phillips, please; here comes the next proa. Blaze away at the blasted warmint! Rake her fore and aft before she forges ahead!"
So shouted old Noah, while adroitly he assisted the recoil of his carronade, ran it back with the aid of Morley, and proceeded to reload and ram home. Captain Phillips, less used to this kind of work than he, levelled his carronade and fired; but he had not trained it properly, for, although the additional charge of broken bottles did some execution among the thick skulls of the Malays, the round shot whistled harmlessly over them all, and was seen ricochetting over the waves, till it made a white water-spout in the offing, far beyond the mouth of the creek.
Noah danced with disappointment and chagrin.
"Now, Mr. Morrison," he cried; "number three—level low—quick! here comes the next lot, a paddling like so many devils. Sweep the scum into eternity."
Morrison fired, and carried away the whole line of starboard paddles, and with them, perhaps, the rower's arms. Then, veering round, she thus fell foul of the first proa, just as the third came sweeping round, and headed towards the creek.
The scene was now terrible; there were some seventy or eighty Malays, many streaming with blood, all waving their paddles and weapons, and uttering such yells as one might imagine to rise from the infernal regions—yells inspired alike by the hope of plunder and of vengeance.
Then the contents of the third carronade, trained by Heriot and Foster, sped on the errand of death, right through them all, just as the leading proa got clear. Half its starboard side was torn away, and thus all its occupants were left to swim or flounder; the dead to sink and the wounded to drown, amid the slimy ooze of the creek.
While more than twenty were swimming, splashing, and scrambling ashore on each side, the paddlers in the other proas resumed their work, scooping the water astern with preternatural vigour, but to avoid a raking shot, presented more of their broadside to the ship, and hence retarded their own progress; so Noah fired his carronade right through one, just abaft the centre thwart, by this oblique shot killing or disabling three or four.