But it was not only the walls that were failing. For, that very afternoon of the 21st, a British seaman gunner's cleverly planted bomb found out a French ship's magazine, exploded it with shattering force, and set fire to the ships on either side. All three blazed furiously. The crews ran to quarters and did their best. But all to no purpose. Meanwhile the British batteries had turned every available gun on the conflagration, so as to prevent the French from saving anything. Between the roaring flames, the bursting shells, and the whizzing cannon balls, the three doomed vessels soon became an inferno too hot for men to stay in. The crews swarmed over the side and escaped; not, however, without losing a good many of their number. Then the British concentrated on the only two remaining vessels, the Prudent and the Bienfaisant. But the French sailors, with admirable pluck and judgment, managed to haul them round to a safer berth. Next day a similar disaster befell the Louisbourg headquarters. A shell went through the roof of the barracks at the King's Bastion, burst among the men there, and set the whole place on fire. As the first tongues of flame shot up the British concentrated on them. The French ran to the threatened spot and worked hard, in spite of the storm of British shot and shell. But nothing was saved, except Drucour's own quarters. During the confusion the wind blew some burning debris against the timbers which protected the nearest casemates from exploding shells. An alarm was raised among the women and children inside. A panic followed; and the civilians of both sexes had their nerves so shaken that they thought of nothing but surrender on the spot. Hardly had this excitement been allayed when the main barracks themselves caught fire. Fortunately they had been cleared when the other fire had shown how imminent the danger was to every structure along the walls. The barracks were in special danger of fire, for they had been left with the same wooden roof which the New Englanders had put on thirteen years before. Again the British guns converged their devastating fire on the point of danger, and the whole place was burned to the ground.