’The flagship’s got one aboard, sir!’ several people shouted. She was covered with smoke for twenty or thirty seconds, but when it cleared away we could not see what damage had been done, and she still fired the big gun on her fo’c’stle and the little ones on one side of her battery. She was searching that ridge, trying to find those guns, but was making execrable shooting. ’They’re going back to their boats, sir!’ Wilson shouted, and turning my glass on the shore, I saw the ragamuffins hurrying down as fast as they’d scampered up half an hour ago, clustering at the edge of the water, and wading out towards the boats. I watched one boat-load pulling like blazes back to its transport, and, just as it got alongside, these two guns fired again and, simultaneously, I saw two black gaps appear in the transport’s side. One spout of water sprang up on the lee side, so I knew that one shell must have gone clean through her, but the other evidently burst aboard, for smoke poured up from amidships. These transports didn’t do much waiting for boats then, they simply slipped their cables and got under way, steaming farther out from the shore—the boats pulling frantically after them. The cruisers, too, weighed their anchors and hauled off in a hurry. In fact, they were in so much confusion, and in such a hurry, that the _Estremadura_, whilst trying to avoid being rammed by the flagship, ran ’slap’ into the little _Primero de Maie_, and when they separated, we saw that her stem was twisted, and that the little gunboat had a big gap in her side. She suddenly fell over to starboard, and was so evidently sinking that I sent the Commander away in the picket-boat to help save life. By the time he’d reached her, only her one mast and the top of her funnel could be seen, and the water was thick with little black heads. The other ships left most of the ’save life’ business to the picket-boat, and steamed off, firing wildly all the time, though as we who were near could not see those two shore guns, _they_ certainly couldn’t, and hadn’t a chance of hitting them. The whole flotilla steamed very slowly along the opposite shore, waiting there a little while for their boats, but those two guns soon picked up the range again, and quickened their retreat, actually having the cheek to fire once or twice at them when the _Hector_ was in the direct line of fire, the shells going right over my ship. The cruisers and transports got out of range presently, and again waited for those of their boats which were still pulling desperately after them. One wretched boat, crowded with soldiers, had taken a short cut past the town, and as it came towards us, we saw that it was under a heavy rifle-fire from the shore, bullet splashes jumping up all round it.