no longer, and he pointed a carronade, firing it with
his own hand. This was the commencement of the strife. All the other
guns in the ruin followed, and the lugger kept time as it might be by
note. The English rose, gave three cheers, and each launch discharged
her gun. At the same instant, the two men who held the matches in the
felucca applied them briskly to the vents of their respective pieces. To
their surprise, neither exploded, and, on examination, it was discovered
that the priming had vanished. To own the truth, he of the Granite State
had slyly brushed his hand over the guns, and robbed them of this great
essential of their force. He held the priming-horns in his own hands,
and resolutely refused to allow them to pass into those of any
other person.

It was fortunate Ithuel was known to be such a determined hater of the
English, else might his life have been the forfeit of this seeming act
of treachery. But he meditated no such dereliction of duty. Perfectly
aware of the impossiblity of preventing his men from firing, did they
possess the means, this deliberate and calculating personage had
resorted to this expedient to reserve his own effort, until, in his
judgment, it might prove the most available. His men murmured, but, too
much excited to deliberate, they poured in a discharge of musketry, as
the only means of annoying the enemy then left them. Even Raoul glanced
aside, a little wondering at not hearing the felucca's carronades, but
perceiving her people busy with their fire-arms, he believed all right.

The first discharge, in such an affair, is usually the most destructive.
On the present occasion, the firing was not without serious effects. The
English, much the most exposed, suffered in proportion. Four men were
hurt in Winchester's boat, two in Griffin's, six or eight men in the
other launches and cutters: and one of Sir Frederick's gig-men was shot
through the heart--a circumstance which induced that officer to drop
alongside of a cutter, and exchange the dead body for a living man.

On the rocks, but one man was injured. A round-shot had hit a stone,
shivered it in fragments, and struck down a valuable seaman, just as he
was advancing, with a gallant mien, to sponge one of the guns.

"Poor Josef!" said Raoul, as he witnessed the man's fall; "carry him to
the surgeon, _mes braves_."

"_Mon capitaine_, Josef is dead."

This decided the matter, and the body was laid aside, while another
steppe