This moment was now near.  The object of the English was to land on the principal islet, and to carry the ruin by storm.  In order to do this, all the boats of their centre converged in their courses to the same point; and the smoke being driven off by each concussion of the guns, a dark cluster of the enemy diverged from the ragged outline of the vapor, within fifty yards of the intended point of landing.  Ithuel and his companion were ready.  Together they sighted, and together they fired.  This unexpected discharge from a quarter that had been so comparatively silent, surprised both friends and foes, and it drove a fresh mantle of smoke momentarily athwart the rock and the open space in its front.

A cry arose from the dense shroud of battle that differed from the shouts of success and courage.  Physical agony had extorted shrieks from the stoutest hearts, and even the French in the ruins paused to look for the next act of the desperate drama.  Raoul seized the opportunity to prepare for the expected hand-to-hand struggle; but it was unnecessary.  The cessation in the firing was common in both parties, and it gave the vapor a minute in which to lift the curtain from the water.

When the late obstacle was raised high enough to admit of a view, the result became evident.  All the English boats but one had scattered, and were pulling swiftly, in different directions, from the scene of slaughter.  By taking this course, they diverted and divided the fire of the enemies; an expedient of which it would have been happier had they bethought them earlier.  The remaining boat was a cutter of the Terpsichore.  It had received the weight of canister from Ithuel’s own gun, and of sixteen men it had contained when it left the frigate’s side, but two escaped.  These fellows had thrown themselves into the sea, and were picked up by passing boats.  The cutter itself came drifting slowly in toward the rock, announcing the nature of its fearful cargo by the groans and cries that arose from out its bosom.  Raoul stopped the fire, equally from humanity and policy, after a few discharges at the retreating boats; and the first act of the battle closed.

The breathing time gave both parties a desirable opportunity for ascertaining in what positions they were left.  In the whole, the French had lost the services of eleven men; all, with the exception of Ithuel’s four, in the ruin.  The loss of the English amounted to thirty-three, including several officers.  The master’s mate who had commanded the crippled cutter lay over its stern, flat on his back, with no less than five musket-balls through his chest.  His passage into another state of existence had been sudden as the flight of the electric spark.  Of his late companions, several were dead also; though most were still enduring the pain of fractured bones and bruised nerves.  The boat itself slowly touched the rocks, raising fresh cries among the wounded by the agony they endured from the shocks of rising and falling under the ground-swell.