I turned my glass on the ships and saw that they were all in confusion, their crews running about like ants, and then a spurt of flame shot out from the fo'c'stle of the flagship, and a large shell screamed and shrieked over the town. The other cruisers began firing too, their shells dropping all over the place, but very seldom bursting. One struck a patch of swamp, and sent the mud flying up in fine style.
The two shore guns fired again, and this time I did see the thin brownish smoke for a second, but a moment later couldn't see the guns themselves.
'The flagship's got one aboard, sir!' several people shouted. She was covered with smoke for twenty or thirty seconds, but when it cleared away we could not see what damage had been done, and she still fired the big gun on her fo'c'stle and the little ones on one side of her battery. She was searching that ridge, trying to find those guns, but was making execrable shooting.
'They're going back to their boats, sir!' Wilson shouted, and turning my glass on the shore, I saw the ragamuffins hurrying down as fast as they'd scampered up half an hour ago, clustering at the edge of the water, and wading out towards the boats. I watched one boat-load pulling like blazes back to its transport, and, just as it got alongside, these two guns fired again and, simultaneously, I saw two black gaps appear in the transport's side. One spout of water sprang up on the lee side, so I knew that one shell must have gone clean through her, but the other evidently burst aboard, for smoke poured up from amidships.
These transports didn't do much waiting for boats then, they simply slipped their cables and got under way, steaming farther out from the shore--the boats pulling frantically after them.
The cruisers, too, weighed their anchors and hauled off in a hurry. In fact, they were in so much confusion, and in such a hurry, that the _Estremadura_, whilst trying to avoid being rammed by the flagship, ran 'slap' into the little _Primero de Maie_, and when they separated, we saw that her stem was twisted, and that the little gunboat had a big gap in her side. She suddenly fell over to starboard, and was so evidently sinking that I sent the Commander away in the picket-boat to help save life. By the time he'd reached her, only her one mast and the top of her funnel could be seen, and the water was thick with little black heads.