The game, however, was not to be all on one side. The Frenchmen’s guns were heard going off as fast as they could get their matches ready. They could easily be distinguished by the far louder noise they made. Those from the two other forts at the same time could be heard firing away. Cries and shrieks rose from wounded men, and a loud explosion, as if a gun had burst, rent the air.
“The vessel attacking is a corvette,” cried Rayner. “She must have run close in for her shot to strike in the way they are doing. It is a bold enterprise, and I pray she may be successful for her sake as well as ours.”
“Can she be the Ariel or Lily?” asked Oliver.
“Whichever she is, the attempt would not have been made without good hope of success,” remarked Rayner.
“I wish that we were out of this, and aboard her,” exclaimed Jack.
“So do I,” cried Brown. “I don’t like being boxed up here while such work is going on. Couldn’t we manage to break out?”
“We are safe here, and we’d better remain where we are,” said Tom; “only I hope none of those round shot will find their way into this place.”
On the impulse of the moment Jack and Brown made a rush at the door, but it was far too strongly bolted to allow them to break it open. The other prisoners sat with their hands before them, hoping probably, as Tom did, that no shot would find its way among them.
Rayner and Oliver looked up at the windows near the roof, but they were strongly-barred and too narrow to enable a grown man to squeeze through them. To sit down quietly seemed impossible. They stood therefore listening, and trying to make out by the sounds which reached their ears how the fight was going. Presently some more guns were heard coming from the sea.
“There must be another vessel!” exclaimed Rayner. “Hark! she must be engaging the upper fort. I thought that one would scarcely venture singly to attack the three forts.”