`` Load his gun , Hawkins . How many should say there were on your side , doctor ? '' `` I know precisely , '' said Dr. Livesey . `` Three shots were fired on this side . I saw the three flashes -- two close together -- one farther to the west . '' `` Three ! '' repeated the captain . `` And how many on yours , Mr. Trelawney ? '' But this was not so easily answered . There had come many from the north -- seven by the squire 's computation , eight or nine according to Gray . From the east and west only a single shot had been fired . It was plain , therefore , that the attack would be developed from the north and that on the other three sides we were only to be annoyed by a show of hostilities . But Captain Smollett made no change in his arrangements . If the mutineers succeeded in crossing the stockade , he argued , they would take possession of any unprotected loophole and shoot us down like rats in our own stronghold . Nor had we much time left to us for thought . Suddenly , with a loud huzza , a little cloud of pirates leaped from the woods on the north side and ran straight on the stockade . At the same moment , the fire was once more opened from the woods , and a rifle ball sang through the doorway and knocked the doctor 's musket into bits . The boarders swarmed over the fence like monkeys . Squire and Gray fired again and yet again ; three men fell , one forwards into the enclosure , two back on the outside . But of these , one was evidently more frightened than hurt , for he was on his feet again in a crack and instantly disappeared among the trees .
Two had bit the dust , one had fled , four had made good their footing inside our defences , while from the shelter of the woods seven or eight men , each evidently supplied with several muskets , kept up a hot though useless XXXXX on the log-house .
Gray Hawkins Livesey Smollett Trelawney attack fire huzza left mutineers