Chapter Thirty Five.
New adventures and successes.
As Oliver, who went first, had just got to the top, his attention was attracted by loud shouts coming from the rear of the fort. Above them quickly rose a hearty British cheer. Showers of bullets came flying through the air. The shouts and cries increased. Amid the clash of steel, and the sharp crack of pistols, the voices of the officers reached him calling the men to abandon the guns and defend the fort. But it was too late. Already a strong party of blue-jackets and marines were inside.
The gate in the rear, insufficiently protected, had evidently been taken by a rush. The Frenchmen, as they always do, fought bravely, but hurrying up without order, many of them without muskets, they were driven back.
Even had they been better disciplined, nothing could have withstood the fierce onslaught of the British. Numbers of the defenders were seen to fall, their officers being killed or made prisoners. Most of the remainder, taking to flight, crept through the embrasures or leapt over the parapet.
Directly Oliver announced what was going on, the rest of the party were more eager than ever to get out. Jack was the last drawn up, and they all, with Le Duc, dropped on the ground.
“Hullo! here’s a firelock, and a bayonet at the end of it,” said Brown, picking up a musket which the sentry had probably thrown down when making his escape. “Hurrah, boys! we’ll charge the mounseers, and make them wish they’d never set eyes on us.”
Brown, in his eagerness, would have set off without waiting for his companions. Three muskets were found piled close outside of the prison, and a little way off lay the body of an officer who had been shot while making his way to the rear.
Rayner took possession of his sword. The victorious assailants were now sweeping onwards towards the farther end of the fort, in which direction most of the garrison had fled.
At the other end Rayner observed a group of men, either undecided how to act or waiting an opportunity to attack the British in the rear, for they could now see by the increasing daylight that it was but a small party which had surprised the fort.