The Argosy, Vol. 75, No. 4 — page 157: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

SAILING WITH MORGAN, land-wind, we caught our first sight of Porto Bello. Short time was ours for debate. Four hundred men were hastily thrown ashore and formed under the shelter of the protecting line of the sand-hills, and then we went pell-mell at the fort, dragging along with us the storming ladders that we had made of light spars and rope while we were still aboard ship. We were met by a shower of mus- ket-balls as our leaders topped the ramparts, but the Spanish musketeers were forced to keep under cover by the fire of the Hispaniola Hunters, whom Morgan threw forward to com- mand the work. Not a head could show itself above the crest without being the target for a score of bullets, and so by ladders to the embrasures and by hands and toes and teeth we clawed our way up the scarp of the ditch, over the parapet, and so down into the terre pleine of the work. Fighting, firing, cursing, hewing, it would have taken more than mere men to have stood against that rush, and ever in the very front of the fight was the red-velveted figure now motioning with bloody cutlas for a quick ad- vance, now thrusting and foining with a vigor that seemed to have been born of the pit itself, and at the critical mo- ment the flank attack was pushed home and Judson, with his three crews, came surging in over the northern work, and we saw at last that the fort was ours. This was the outer work, and we saw, to our dismay, that there were four more to be taken before the town would be at our mercy. This was the first impression that we got; but we had not counted on the military genius of our leader, for, with great discre- tion, he had picked out the fort that we had taken as being the key to the position, and in taking it we had picked the lock of Porto Bello. Two forts lay across the entrance to the channel, and their fire would 8a9 hardly reach the city, for they had been built to repulse an attack by sea and not to cover the defense of the town by land. No one had ever considered as a possibility the storming of the fort that we had taken, because its guns commanded such a sweep of sea and beach in its immediate front. Of the remaining two forts on our own side of the harbor, both were much lower than the one we had occupied, and we saw the garrison of the farther work hastily leave and take shelter in the woods that trowned the line of low hills to the westward. Parties of men were moving from the town to the one remaining work that stood between us and complete victory. It was on that remaining en- trenchment that our main attack must be made. Our leaders held momentary debate. “ Attack from all four sides,” said Morgan, “and move all the guns in this place to the western side, so that their fire will cover us till we get too close to the walls to trust to aught but our pikes and cutlases.” Fifty men were told off to man the guns, and the rest of us plunged on over the low sand-hills, covered with their dense growth of prickly pear and scrubby manzanilla bushes, stumbling along ankle-deep in sand, dripping with sweat, grimed blood and dust and powder-spit. Our first advance was repulsed and the skirmishers fell back, cursing. Again they pushed forward, swarming up the long spars that they leaned against the embrasures, but with the same result. Five men carried a brass saker from the fort behind, and, mounting it in the fork of a small tree, they opened fire with it upon the gate. I was standing near Morgan, when suddenly I saw Hetherington run up to him and point with his drawn sword to a long, white building which crowned a low rise to the north. He spoke rapidly and fiercely, and Mor- (ECO AMIE VOOKS: (E@)