CHAPTER VI. THE BATTLE.
After the first reconnaissance the lights were extinguished. The only thing to do was to wait for day.
However, by the doctor’s orders, the militia were mustered and sent to their stations.
It was necessary to be in a position to strike the first blow, on which, perhaps, the issue of the enterprise would depend.
It was now certain that the assailants could no longer hope to take the island by surprise, inasmuch as the projection of the light had allowed of their course and numbers being known.
A most careful watch was kept during the last hours of the night. Many times was the horizon illuminated so as to permit of the exact position of the flotilla being noted. That the as»sailants were numerous there could be no doubt. That they were sufficiently armed to have a chance against the Antekirtta batteries was doubtful. They were probably without artillery. But the number of men that the chief could land at once would make the Senousists really formidable.
Day at once began to break, and the first rays of the sun dissipated the mists on the horizon. Every eye was turned seaward toward the east and south. The flotilla was advancing in a long circle in which were over 200 vessels, some small boats and some of over forty tons. Altogether they could carry about 2000 men.
At five o’clock the flotilla was off Kencraf. Would the enemy stop there and take up their position before attacking the island? If they did so, it would indeed be fortunate. The mines laid by the doctor would seriously damage their attack, if they did not entirely settle it.
An anxious half hour elapsed. It seemed as though the vessels, as they reached the islet, were about to land—but they did nothing of the sort. Not one stopped, the line curved further off to the south, leaving it to the right and it became evident that Antekirtta would be directly attacked, or rather invaded, in an hour.
“The only thing now is to defend ourselves,” said the doctor to the chief of the militia.
The signal was given, and those in the island hastened into the town to take the posts that had been assigned them beforehand. By the doctor’s orders Pierre Bathory took command of the fortifications to the south, Luigi of those to the east. The defenders—five hundred at the most—were posted so that they could face the enemy wherever he attempted to force the walls. The doctor held himself ready to go where his presence might be necessary. Mme. Bathory, Sava Sandorf, Maria Ferrato remained in the hall of the Stadthaus. The other women, should the town be carried, were ordered to take shelter with their children in the casemates where they would have nothing to fear even if the assailants possessed a few landing guns.
The question of Kencraf being settled—unfortunately to the doctor’s disadvantage—there remained the question of the harbor. If the flotilla attempted to force an entry, the forts on the two jetties, with their cross-fires, the guns of the “Ferrato,” the torpedoes of the “Electrics,” and the torpedoes sunk in the channel would have something to say in the matter. It would, in short, be fortunate if the attack were made on that side.
But—as was only too evident—the chief of the Senousists was perfectly acquainted with Antekirtt’s means of defense. To attempt a direct attack on the harbor would have been to run to complete and immediate annihilation. A landing in the southern part of the island, where the operation would be an easy one, was the plan he adopted. And so, baring passed by the harbor, as he had passed by Kencraf, he took his flotilla, still rowing, toward the weak point of Antekirtta.
As soon as he saw this the doctor took such measures as circumstances demanded. Captains Kostrik and Narsos each took command of a torpedo boat and slipped out of harbor.
A quarter of an hour afterward the two “Electrics” had rushed into the midst of the flotilla, broken the line, sunk five or six of the vessels, and stove in more than a dozen others. But the number of the enemy was so great that, to avoid being boarded, the “Electrics” had to retreat to the shelter of the jetties.
But the “Ferrato” had now come into position and begun firing on the flotilla. Her guns and those of the batteries that could be brought to bear were, however, insufficient to prevent the pirates landing. Although a great number had perished, although twenty of their vessels had been sunk, more than 1000 scrambled on to the rocks in the south, to which the calm sea rendered the approach so easy.
It was then found that the Senousists were not without artillery. The largest of the xebecs had several field-pieces on wheeled carriages, and these were landed on the shore, which was out of range of the guns either of the town or the central cone.
The doctor, from his position on the nearest salient, had seen all this, and with his much fewer men could not attempt to stop it. But as they were sheltered by the walls, the assailants, numerous as they were, would find their task a difficult one.
The Senousists, dragging their light guns with them, formed up into two columns, and came marching along with all the careless bravery of the Arab and the audacity of the fanatics, who glory in their contempt of death, their hope of pillage, and their hate of the European.
When they were well within range the batteries opened on them. More than 100 fell, but the others still kept on. Their field-pieces were bought into position, and they began to breach the wall in the angle of the unfinished curtain toward the south.
Their chief, calm amid those who were falling at his side, directed the operation. Sarcany, close by, was exciting him to deliver the assault and hurl several hundred men at the falling wall.
From the distance Dr. Antekirtt and Pierre had recognized him, and he had recognized them.
And now the mass of besiegers began their advance to the wall, which had been beaten in sufficiently to let them through. If they succeeded in clearing this breach, they would spread themselves over the town, and the besieged too weak to resist, would have to abandon it, and, with the sanguinary temperament of the pirates, the victory would be followed by a general massacre.
The hand-to-hand struggle at this point was terrible. Under the doctor’s orders, who stood as impassable in the danger as he was invulnerable amid the bullets, Pierre and his companions performed prodigies of valor, Point Pescade and Cape Matifou lent their assistance and displayed the most brilliant audacity.
The Hercules, with a knife in one hand and an ax in the other, kept clear the space around him.
“Go it, Cape, go it! Down with them!” shouted Point Pescade, whose revolver, incessantly recharging and discharging, was going like a Gatling.
But the foe would not yield. After being many times driven out of the breach, they had again swarmed on to the attack and were slowly fighting their way through it They suddenly found themselves attacked in the rear.
The “Ferrato” had managed to get into a commanding position within three cable-lengths of the shore, and with her carronades all brought to the one side, her long chaser, her Hotchkiss cannons and her Gatling mitrailleuses she opened such a fire on the assailants that they were mowed down as the grass before the scythe. She attacked them in the rear and cannonaded them on the beach at the same time, so as to sink and destroy the boats which had been moored round the rocks.
The blow was a terrible one, and was quite unexpected by the Senousists. Not only were they taken in the rear, but all means of escape would be cut off if their vessels were knocked to pieces by the guns of the “Ferrato.” The assailants hesitated in the breach that the militia were defending so obstinately. Already more than 500 had met their deaths, while the besieged had lost but few.
The leader of the expedition saw that he must immediately retreat toward the sea, or expose his companions to certain and complete destruction. In vain Sarcany demanded that they might continue the attack on the town. The order was given to return to the shore; and the Senousists drew off as if they would be killed to the last man, were the orders given them to die.
But it was necessary to give these pirates a lesson they would never forget.
“Forward! my friends! forward!” shouted the doctor.
And, under the orders of Pierre and Luigi, a hundred of the militia threw themselves on to the fugitives as they retreated to the shore. Between the fire from the “Ferrato” and the fire from the batteries the Senousists had to give way. Their ranks broke in disorder and they ran in a crowd to the seven or eight vessels that still were left to them.
Pierre and Luigi amid the confusion endeavored above all things to take one man prisoner. That man was Sarcany. But they wished to have him alive, and it was only by a miracle that they escaped the revolver shots the scoundrel fired at them.
It seemed, however, that fate would again withdraw him from their hands.
Sarcany and the leader of the Senousists, followed by a dozen of their companions, had managed to regain a small polacca, which they had cast off and were preparing to get under way. The “Ferrato” was too far off for them to signal her to pursue, and it looked as though she would escape.
At the moment Cape Matifou saw a field-gun dismounted from its carriage and thrown on the beach.
To huri himself on the still loaded gun, to lift it, with superhuman force on to one of the rocks, to steady it by the trunnions, and in a voice of thunder to shout, “Come here, Pescade! Here!” was the work of a moment.
Pescade heard Matifou’s shout and saw what he had done; instantly he understood, ran up, pointed the gun at the polacca, and fired.
The shot went clear through the hull. The recoil hardly shook the living gun-carriage. The leader of the Senousists and his companions were pitched into the water and for the most part drowned. Sarcany was struggling with the surf when Luigi threw himself into the sea.
A minute afterward Sarcany was safe in the huge hands of Cape Matifou.
The victory was complete. Of the two thousand assailants who had landed on the island only a few hundred escaped to the Cyrenaic to tell the story of the disaster.
Antekirtta would, it could be hoped, for many a year be free from another attack from pirates.