The Romance of the World. The Great Fight for India

The shot went through the palace to the no small terror of Raja Sahib and his principal officers ; and as this was the only effect intended the cannon was fired only once in the day at the time when the officers assembled at the head-quarters. [...] In the evening a spy brought intelligence of this to the garrison ; and at midnight another came with all the enemy's dispositions and the hour of attack which was to begin at the dawn of the day by the signal of three bombs. [...] The garrison made the best defence they could but the gunners were shot down by musket fire from the round-tops of the English ships and when a shell set fire to a thatched house within the fort the inhabitants were too much alarmed to attempt to extinguish the flames ; the blaze spread a powder magazine blew up and the people including the greater part of the soldiers fled to the shore and [...] The deafening roar of the guns the huge columns of smoke that floated heavily over the fort and sometimes enveloped the vessels the bray of trumpets the beating of tom-toms the shouts of men made up a scene at once stirring and fearful. [...] In spite of the cries of the deserted and subsequent signals of distress from the fort the ships sailed off leaving some hundred and fifty of their fellow-countrymen to the tender mercies of the Subandar.