and
one after another, from right to left and then from left to right and over
and over again, they began to fire with tremendous rapidity and accuracy
at the schooner. All the best gunners were around the twelve pounders. If
one fell, another took his place. Many of them were stripped to the waist,
and their own fire lighted up their tan faces and their brown sinewy arms
as they handled rammer and cannon shot.

The fire of the cannon was supported by that of scores and scores of
rifles, and the enemy replied with furious energy. But the supply fleet
was animated now by a single purpose. The shiftless one's simile of a
wedge driven into a log was true. No attention was paid to anybody in the
hostile boats and canoes. They could fire unheeded. Every American cannon
and rifle sent its load straight at the schooner. All the upper works of
the vessel were shot away. The men of Alvarez could not live upon its
decks; they were even slain at the port holes by the terrific rifle fire;
cannon shot, grape shot, and rifle bullets searched every nook and corner
of the vessel, and her desperate crew, one by one, began to leap into the
water and make for the shores.

A shout of exultation rose from the supply fleet, which was now slowly
moving forward. Flames suddenly burst from the schooner and ran up the
stumps of her masts and spars, reaching out long arms and laying hold at
new points. The cannon shots had also reached the inside of the ship as
fire began to spout from the port holes, and there was a steady stream of
men leaping from the schooner into the water of the bayou and making for
the land.

The American shout of exultation was repeated, and the forest gave back
the echo. The Indians answered it with a fierce yell of defiance, and the
forest gave back that, too.

But Adam Colfax had been watching shrewdly.

In his daring life he had been in more than one naval battle, and when he
saw the schooner wrapped and re-wrapped in great coils and ribbons of
flame he knew what was due. Suddenly he shouted in a voice that could be
heard above the roar of the battle:

"Back! Back, all! Back for your lives!"

It reached the ears of everybody in the American fleet, and whether he
understood its words or not every man understood its tone. There was an
involuntary movement common to all. The fleet stopped its slow advance,
seemed to sway in another direction, and then to sit still on the water.
But all were looking at the schoone