inted skyward, its under
side resting on the edge of the turret and threatening to crash down on
deck outside at any moment. The ruddy orange tint of the light and the
length of the shadows told that the sun was near his setting, yet up to
this time no effort had been made to land any of the men from the
transports. But now Frobisher observed that boats were being lowered
from the steamers, and that soldiers were beginning to clamber down into
them, while the war-ships redoubled their fire, with the evident purpose
of putting the rebel guns out of action, and so making it the easier for
the troops to effect a landing.

And now at length that terrible and continuous cannonade began to have
its effect, especially as the garrison of the fort had begun to imitate
the rebel tactics and were now harassing the foe with rifle fire. The
garrison, being sheltered by the parapet of the battlements, were able
to fire at leisure and without much danger to themselves; so that,
although they were not such good marksmen as their opponents, the mere
weight of their fire eventually began to tell upon the unfortunate men
in the open, who had nothing but the fringe of jungle to protect them.

The field-piece which had previously been put out of action was now
struck a second time by a fragment of flying shell, and collapsed once
more on to the sand; and so fierce was the rifle and shell fire that was
now being directed upon the little band of gunners that, although they
made the most valiant and desperate efforts to repair the damage, they
were driven away from the spot time after time, and were at last
compelled to abandon their efforts. Then a second field-piece was blown
completely off its carriage by one of the solid shot from the fort, and
a few seconds afterwards a third gun was dismounted and its crew
shattered to pieces by a shell from one of the Chinese gunboats.

Stubbornly, however, the rebels still clung to their position, and,
again swinging round the two pieces with which they had been playing on
the ships, they resumed the bombardment of the fort, in the hope of
battering in a breach through which the place might be carried by storm,
or compelling its surrender before the approaching reinforcements could
arrive from the fleet.

So absorbed was Frobisher in the little drama that was being enacted
before his eyes that, even when the muzzles of the rebel guns were
trained on what appeared to be the very window out of whi