Page:Bacheller--D'ri and I.djvu/256

D'RI AND I with others. The cannonading was now so close and heavy that it gave me an ache in the ears, but above its quaking thunder I could hear the shrill cries of men sinking to hasty death in the grip of pain. The brig was in sore distress, her timbers creaking, snapping, quivering, like one being beaten to death, his bones cracking, his muscles pulping under heavy blows. We were above water-line there in the cockpit; we could feel her flinch and stagger. On her side there came suddenly a crushing blow, as if some great hammer, swung far in the sky, had come down upon her. I could hear the split and break of heavy timbers; I could see splinters flying over me in a rush of smoke, and the legs of a man go bumping on the beams above. Then came another crash of timbers on the port side. I leaped off the table and ran, limping, to the deck, I do not know why; I was driven by some quick and irresistible impulse. I was near out of my head, anyway, with the rage of battle in me and no chance to fight. Well, suddenly, I found myself stumbling, with drawn sabre, over heaps of the hurt and dead there on our reeking deck. It was a horrible place: