Page:Ballantyne--The Pirate City.djvu/404

382 their deadly missiles right over their own ships and into the town and arsenal, with tremendous effect.

Thus the work of destruction went on all the afternoon, while men, of course, fell fast on both sides—for the deadly game of war cannot be carried on except at fearful cost. Even in the secondary matter of matériel the cost is not small. As night approached the guns of the enemy were completely silenced, and the ships began to husband their ammunition, for they had by that time fired an immense quantity of gunpowder, and 50,000 shot, weighing more than 500 tons of iron; besides 960 shells of large size, as well as a considerable quantity of shot, shell, and rockets from the flotilla! The result was that the entire fleet of the pirates was destroyed, and the sea-defences of Algiers, with a great part of the town itself, were shattered and crumbled in ruins.

Then the fleet hauled off with considerable difficulty, owing to the absence of wind; but the pirates had not given in, for they kept spitting at their foes from the upper batteries of the town until half-past eleven at night, when the ships got out of range and firing ceased.

Strange to say, the powers of nature, which had hitherto slumbered quietly, now came into play. The breeze freshened and a tremendous storm of