The fleet of row-boats paused to rescue the struggling and half-drowned men from the icy water; the other bug-eyes, alarmed by Haley’s signal, had turned and come up to meet the Brandt. The four vessels opened fire on the row-boat fleet, even as they were engaged in the work of rescue. Defeated in their plan to cut off the single bug-eye, the rowboats put back to shore and the party scrambled into hiding.
Warned by this attempt, however, the captains of the poaching fleet now resolved to make sure against any similar boarding party. Taking a position in the river where the fire was hottest, and the owners of the oyster beds seemed to be gathered in greatest numbers, judging by the fire, the bug-eyes drew close together, side by side; an anchor was dropped from the one farthest down-stream, Captain Bill’s vessel, and lashings were passed to hold them together. This position, as the decks were flush, would allow the united crews of the four to concentrate on any single deck to resist boarders.
Hitherto, the dredgers had escaped serious harm; but now a rifle bullet, landing in a number of men bunched on the second dredger, wounded two of them and they fell to the deck, uttering cries of pain. Another bullet cut the cheek of Sam Black, who had resumed the wheel of the Brandt; but he held to his post, with a handkerchief bound about his head. The party on shore gave no evidence of the injuries they may have received.
That the attacking owners were being driven from their position by the concentrated fire from all four vessels was apparent, however. Gradually the fire from shore grew less and less. The dredgers, after discharging a few more volleys and waiting for a quarter of an hour, without being fired on, cast loose once more and resumed their dredging.
But they were not suffered to work unmolested for more than an hour. At the end of about that time, the river bank was illumined again with a line of flashes, and the crack of rifles smote upon the air. But now the fight was even more uncertain and the firing still more a matter of chance. For the wind was drawing around to the southward and a fog was slowly drifting up the river, blown at first in detached patches which blotted out the shore one moment, then left it partly cleared.
The dredgers resumed their position, lashed together and at anchor, so as not to lose sight of one another in the fog, and directed their fire more by the sound of the enemy’s firing than by sight. The weird, uncertain battle made a strange picture, with the streams of rifle fire penetrating the fog and the smoke of powder arising through the fog banks.
And then, amid a momentary lull in the firing, there came suddenly out of the fog in the direction of down the river, the unmistakable jingle of a bell. They knew the sound. It came from an engine-room. Some steamer was approaching. The captains waited apprehensively. There could be little doubt of the nature of the craft.
If doubt there was, however, it was soon dispelled. There came a flash in the mist, a ball from a one-pounder hummed through the rigging and tore away a main-mast shroud. The report of the piece, mounted in the bow of the police steamer, followed. Then a voice came through a megaphone, “Ahoy there! I’ll give you captains just two minutes to launch your skiffs and come aboard here, or I’ll sink you.”
Captain Hamilton Haley, raising his rifle to his shoulder, aimed deliberately and fired in the direction of the voice. The bullet must have gone close to the captain of the steamer, for there came a sound as of shattered glass. The shot had hit the window of the pilot-house.
There ensued a silence of a moment, and then there came a heavy rifle fire from the steamer, mingled with the heavier crash of the one-pounder. The bug-eyes took up the firing; and the air was alive with bullets. Moreover, the party ashore, jubilant at the reinforcement through the strong arm of the navy, sent up an exultant shout and poured a volley from their ambush.