Meanwhile the fight went merrily on. The fort was suffering badly.
Yet for all their manoeuvring the buccaneers were not escaping
punishment. The starboard gunwale of the Atropos had been hammered
into splinters, and a shot had caught her astern in the coach. The
Elizabeth was badly battered about the forecastle, and the Arabella's
maintop had been shot away, whilst' towards the end of that
engagement the Lachesis came reeling out of the fight with a
shattered rudder, steering herself by sweeps.
The absurd Baron's fierce eyes positively gleamed with satisfaction.
"I pray Heaven they may sink all his infernal ships!" he cried in
his frenzy.
But Heaven didn't hear him. Scarcely had he spoken than there was
a terrific explosion, and half the fort went up in fragments. A
lucky shot from the buccaneers had found the powder magazine.
It may have been a couple of hours later, when Captain Blood, as
spruce and cool as if he had just come from a levee, stepped upon
the quarter-deck of the Victoriense, to confront M.
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