(continued)

So some seconds passed, till suddenly Joyce whipped up his musket and fired.  The report had scarcely died away ere it was repeated and repeated from without in a scattering volley, shot behind shot, like a string of geese, from every side of the enclosure.  Several bullets struck the log-house, but not one entered;  and as the smoke cleared away and vanished, the stockade and the woods around it looked as quiet and empty as before.  Not a bough waved, not the gleam of a musket-barrel betrayed the presence of our foes.

"Did you hit your man?" asked the captain.

"No, sir," replied Joyce.  "I believe not, sir."

"Next best thing to tell the truth," muttered Captain Smollett.  "Load his gun, Hawkins.  How many should say there were on your side, doctor?"

"I know precisely," said Dr. Livesey.  "Three shots were fired on this side.  I saw the three flashes—two close together—one farther to the west."

"Three!" repeated the captain.  "And how many on yours, Mr. Trelawney?"

But this was not so easily answered.  There had come many from the north—seven by the squire's computation, eight or nine according to Gray.  From the east and west only a single shot had been fired.  It was plain, therefore, that the attack would be developed from the north and that on the other three sides we were only to be annoyed by a show of hostilities.  But Captain Smollett made no change in his arrangements.  If the mutineers succeeded in crossing the stockade, he argued, they would take possession of any unprotected loophole and shoot us down like rats in our own stronghold.

Nor had we much time left to us for thought.  Suddenly, with a loud huzza, a little cloud of pirates leaped from the woods on the north side and ran straight on the stockade.  At the same moment, the fire was once more opened from the woods, and a rifle ball sang through the doorway and knocked the doctor's musket into bits.

The boarders swarmed over the fence like monkeys.  Squire and Gray fired again and yet again;  three men fell, one forwards into the enclosure, two back on the outside.  But of these, one was evidently more frightened than hurt, for he was on his feet again in a crack and instantly disappeared among the trees.

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