As the merry war progresses, Colonel Nichols, with much ardor and no discernment, drags his howitzer to a strategic sand hill, and fires one shot at Fort Bowyer. It is a badly considered movement, the instant effect being to draw the Fort's horns his way. The southern battery of the Fort opens upon him like a tornado, and he and his fellow artillerists retire--without their howitzer. The most discouraging feature is that a stone, sent flying from the strategic sand hill by a cannon ball, knocks out one of Colonel Nichols's eyes. After this exploit, the one-eyed proclamationist, much saddened, but with wisdom increased, is content to stand afar off, and leave the down-battering of Fort Bowyer to the fleet. This down-battering Captain Percy and his sailormen do their tarry best to bring about. But, as hour after hour drifts to leeward in the smoke of their broadsides, and the stubborn Lawrence continues to send his hail of twenty-four-pound shot aboard, it begins to creep upon Captain Percy, like mosses upon stone, that Fort Bowyer is a nut beyond the power of even his iron teeth to crack. As a red-hot shot sets fire to the _Hermes_ and explodes her magazine, the impression deepens to apprehension, which, when the _Sophia_ is reported sinking, ripens rapidly into conviction. Major Lawrence, with his “Don't give up the Fort!” all but blots Captain Percy--who has tenfold his force--off the face of the Gulf, and he does it with a loss of eight men killed and wounded to an English loss of over three hundred. Captain Percy, whipped and broken-hearted, shifts his flag and what is left of his _Hermes'_ crew to the _Sophia_, and, pumps clanking hysterically to keep-himself afloat, goes limping back to Pensacola, lighted on his defeated way by the flare and glare from the blazing _Hermes_. As the English pass the extreme southern tip of Mobile Point, as far from the unmannerly batteries of Fort Bowyer as the lay of the land permits, they pick up the one-eyed proclamationist, Colonel Nichols, and his howitzerless men. The fleet, battered, torn, sails adroop, with the _Sophia_ three feet below her trim from shot-admitted water in her hold, reaches Pensacola. Governor Maurequez looks scornfully dark, but, Spaniard-like, shrugs his vainglorious shoulders and says to an aide: “It is nothing! They are but English pigs! When this General Jackson reaches Pensacola--if he should be so great a fool as to come--we cavaliers of old Spain will tear him to pieces, as tigers rend their prey. Yes, _amigo_, we will show these beaten pigs of English how the proud blood of the Cid can fight.”