Page:Memoirs of a Huguenot Family.djvu/201

 Rh over the door, and as the lieutenant was advancing with every appearance of confidence in his men, I fired at him with a blunderbuss loaded with large shot, some of which entered his neck above the shoulder blade, and the rest his side. He was taking aim at me as he fell, which made the fire go too high. I ran for another loaded piece which was in the next room, and during my short absence his men took him up, crossed the ditch and carried him back to the vessel.

The Commander was furious at such unexpected resistance from a Minister, and sent another officer on shore, with twenty more men and two small cannon. They placed these under cover of the rocks and hedges, and cannonaded the north side of the house, while the guns of the vessel bore upon the south-east. Being altogether unaccustomed to this kind of music, I must acknowledge that when the first cannon ball struck the house, I felt some tremors of fear. I instantly humbled myself internally, before my Maker, and having committed myself, both soul and body, to his keeping, my heart revived within me. I regained my courage, and suffered no more from fear. I popped my head out of the window to see what effect the ball had produced on our stone wall; and when I perceived that it had only made a slight scratch, I cried out joyfully, "Be of good courage, my children, their cannon-balls make no more impression on our stone walls, than if they were so many apples!"

I had an officer staying with me, with whom I had been conversing the night before this attack, as to the probable chance of my being able to offer successful resistance upon such an occasion as the present. His reply had been very discouraging; he thought a cannon would make as short work with us as if our habitation had been a castle of cards.