When first sighted the cavalry were trotting but they were coming on now at a slow canter.  Arabs in white robes on good horses.  Shard estimated that there were two or three hundred of them.  At sixty yards Shard opened with one gun, he had had the distance measured, but had never practised for fear of being heard at the oasis:  the shot went high.  The next one fell short and ricochetted over the Arabs’ heads.  Shard had the range then and by the time the ten remaining guns of his broadside were given the same elevation as that of his second gun the Arabs had come to the spot where the last shot pitched.  The broadside hit the horses, mostly low, and ricochetted on amongst them; one cannon-ball striking a rock at the horses’ feet shattered it and sent fragments flying amongst the Arabs with the peculiar scream of things set free by projectiles from their motionless harmless state, and the cannon-ball went on with them with a great howl, this shot alone killed three men.

“Very satisfactory,” said Shard rubbing his chin.  “Load with grape,” he added sharply.

The broadside did not stop the Arabs nor even reduce their speed but they crowded in closer together as though for company in their time of danger, which they should not have done.  They were four hundred yards off now, three hundred and fifty; and then the muskets began, for the two men in the crow’s-nest had thirty loaded muskets besides a few pistols, the muskets all stood round them leaning against the rail; they picked them up and fired them one by one.  Every shot told, but still the Arabs came on.  They were galloping now.  It took some time to load the guns in those days.  Three hundred yards, two hundred and fifty, men dropping all the way, two hundred yards; Old Frank for all his one ear had terrible eyes; it was pistols now, they had fired all their muskets; a hundred and fifty; Shard had marked the fifties with little white stones.  Old Frank and Bad Jack up aloft felt pretty uneasy when they saw the Arabs had come to that little white stone, they both missed their shots.

“All ready?” said Captain Shard.

“Aye, aye, sir,” said Smerdrak.

“Right,” said Captain Shard raising a finger.

A hundred and fifty yards is a bad range at which to be caught by grape (or “case” as we call it now), the gunners can hardly miss and the charge has time to spread.  Shard estimated afterwards that he got thirty Arabs by that broadside alone and as many horses.

There were close on two hundred of them still on their horses, yet the broadside of grape had unsettled them, they surged round the ship but seemed doubtful what to do.  They carried swords and scimitars in their hands, though most had strange long muskets slung behind them, a few unslung them and began firing wildly.  They could not reach Shard’s merry men with their swords.  Had it not been for that broadside that took them when it did they might have climbed