The triumphant
Spaniards now prepared to get rid of this boat load of half-naked wild
beasts, which they could easily do if they should take better aim with
their cannon than they had done before.
But to their amazement they soon found that they could do nothing with
the guns, nor were they able to work their ship so as to get it into
position for effectual shots. Bartholemy and his men laid aside their
cutlasses and their pistols, and took up their muskets, with which they
were well provided. Their vessel lay within a very short range of the
Spanish ship, and whenever a man could be seen through the portholes, or
showed himself in the rigging or anywhere else where it was necessary to
go in order to work the ship, he made himself a target for the good aim
of the pirates. The pirate vessel could move about as it pleased, for it
required but a few men to manage it, and so it kept out of the way of
the Spanish guns, and its best marksmen, crouching close to the deck,
fired and fired whenever a Spanish head was to be seen.
For five long hours this unequal contest was kept up. It might have
reminded one of a man with a slender rod and a long, delicate line, who
had hooked a big salmon. The man could not pull in the salmon, but, on
the other hand, the salmon could not hurt the man, and in the course of
time the big fish would be tired out, and the man would get out his
landing-net and scoop him in.
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