midnight
A cannon-ball entered the great , broad bay window overlooking the sea , made a wreck of the furniture in the parlor , crashed through the wall , shivering a tall mirror and spreading havoc in the room beyond . The siege continued all day long , and late in the afternoon , just one hour before sunset , the redcoats appeared on the wooded hill back of the town , and opened fire with two small pieces and muskets . Fernando 's riflemen had been waiting for this , and , with wild yells , they leaped the redoubts , deployed along the stone fences and houses and picked off the redcoats so rapidly , that they fled pell mell to their own works , glad to escape the bullets of those unerring riflemen . The cannonade kept up until long after midnight . The sky was ablaze with circling shells , and the headlands reverberated with ten thousand echoes . All the guns in the fort save the thirty-two were silent , for the smaller cannon at that range were useless . The soldiers in the fort lay on their arms , and Fernando slept none .