I was beginning to think so
myself, Harry."
Dr. Horsley had been busy enough from the time that the fighting
began in earnest. Ten men had been killed by balls that had passed
through the embrasures, or by kris or lance wounds, and twenty-eight
others had been more or less severely wounded. A quarter of an hour
after the firing ceased, Captain Forrest himself, with the mate,
rowed into the pool in one of the cutters, and landed at the end
of the path close to the battery.
"I congratulate you on your success, Mr. Ferguson," he said, shaking
hands with the first lieutenant; "it has been a very hot affair,
and by Mr. Morrison's report it was just as well that I decided to
change my plan and come up to your aid, though it has resulted in
two of the prahus getting away."
"Then you sank two of them, sir?"
"No, indeed, we only sank one; the third went down just after we saw
her come out from the pool. Certainly we had not hit her, so that
the honor of accounting for three out of six of the craft falls to
you and your party. Well, Doctor, what is your report? I am afraid
it is a bad one."
"Serious, indeed," he went on, after he had received the figures.
"Still it is much less than might have been expected from attacking
such a host of pirates.
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