"Why, sir?" repeated Charters, almost haughtily.
"Yes."
"Because, as the player says—
'I am a man
So weary with disaster, tugged by fortune,
That I would set my life on any chance,
To mend it or be rid on't'
Captain Lindsay, life is no longer a prism to me."
"Ride fast!" said the captain, briefly.
Charters shortened his reins, gave his grey the spurs, and departed at once. As he proceeded towards Querqueville Point, the French cannoniers redoubled their efforts to bring him down. He frequently waved his sword as if in defiance, and escaped as if by a miracle. Then on his descending to the beach, where some rocks protected him, the battery turned its round shot and grape on the advancing boat.
Suddenly there rose from the sea and pierced the sky, the mingled yell of many voices. A twenty-four pound shot had dashed the boat to pieces, and twelve seamen and a little midshipman were seen struggling and sinking amid the debris of oars, thwarts and planks, while the French sent dose after dose of grape to kill the drowning men.
The middy struggled bravely; being light, the waves bore him towards the rocks, but Charters saw that unless succoured, the poor lad would certainly perish amid the surf that boiled over the ridge.
He sheathed his sword, shook his gloved hand fiercely at the battery, and urging his horse into the sea, even while the hissing grape sowed it thick with tiny waterspouts around him, succeeded in grasping the sinking lad by the collar, and turning the head of his gallant grey toward the shore, he bravely battled with the surf, the long waves of which, reddened by the sunshine, seemed to boil in fiery foam upon the beach, and rolled over his shoulders, so that at times the nostrils of his charger were only visible, yet he succeeded in landing the half-drowned midshipman, and rode twice afterwards into the sea to succour the seamen, but succeeded in saving only one.