re spread to all the other boats and vessels in the
harbour, and from these to the storehouses and arsenal, until the whole
place was wrapped in smoke and flames.

Meanwhile the other ships had done terrible execution on the walls and
houses immediately opposite to them, while the bomb-vessels threw their
deadly missiles right over their own ships and into the town and
arsenal, with tremendous effect.

Thus the work of destruction went on all the afternoon, while men, of
course, fell fast on both sides--for the deadly game of war cannot be
carried on except at fearful cost. Even in the secondary matter of
_materiel_ the cost is not small. As night approached the guns of the
enemy were completely silenced, and the ships began to husband their
ammunition, for they had by that time fired an immense quantity of
gunpowder, and 50,000 shot, weighing more than 500 tons of iron; besides
960 shells of large size, as well as a considerable quantity of shot,
shell, and rockets from the flotilla! The result was that the entire
fleet of the pirates was destroyed, and the sea-defences of Algiers,
with a great part of the town itself, were shattered and crumbled in
ruins.

Then the fleet hauled off with considerable difficulty, owing to the
absence of wind; but the pirates had not given in, for they kept
spitting at their foes from the upper batteries of the town until
half-past eleven at night, when the ships got out of range and firing
ceased.

Strange to say, the powers of nature, which had hitherto slumbered
quietly, now came into play. The breeze freshened and a tremendous
storm of thunder, lightning, and rain came on, as if to mock the fury of
man, and humble him under a sense of his relative littleness.

But man is not easily humbled. Next morning the pirates still showed a
disinclination to give in, and the British fleet resumed the offensive
in order to compel them to do so.

The gun-boats were again placed in position, and Lieutenant Burgess was
sent ashore with a flag of truce to demand unconditional surrender.

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.

THE LAST.

In a dimly-lighted cell of a massive stone building not far from the
palace of the Dey, sat Colonel Langley, Francisco Rimini and his two
sons, Bacri the Jew, and the officers and men belonging to the
_Prometheus_--all heavily ironed. The Padre Giovanni was also there,
but not, like the others, a prisoner.

He was attending to his self-imposed duty of comforti