A Middy of the King Part 19

Fiercely we dragged at the fall of the fourfold tackle that formed the working end of the halliard, and at each pull the great, heavy, swaying yard slid a few inches up the short, thick mast, as though reluctantly, while away on our weather quarter we heard the fierce shouts of the men in the approaching boat as they encouraged each other, punctuated by the quick jerk of the oars in the rowlocks, and the swish of the water as the oar-blades clipped into it. With the pa.s.sage of every second those menacing sounds drew appreciably nearer, dominating even the thunderous rustle and slatting of the sail that slowly climbed into the air over our heads, while the felucca, now fast gathering stern-way, and at the same time paying off, was driving steadily down toward the boat at a rate that seemed to render our capture inevitable.

At length, with a final jerk that made the little craft tremble to her keel, the big single sail filled, and the felucca careened to her bearings, as her canvas caught the full pressure of the wind. At the same instant I heard an oar-blade clatter as it was hastily laid in, and an exultant cheer arise from immediately under our counter.

"Catch a turn with the halliards, quick, and then lay aft," I gasped.

"The villains are alongside, and will be in over our quarter before we can do anything to prevent them if we are not smart."

As I spoke I pa.s.sed the rope under, then over, a belaying-pin before surrendering it to Cutler to complete the operation of belaying, and then bounded aft, followed by Tom Brown, who had s.n.a.t.c.hed a handspike from the rack as he pa.s.sed it. My first act was to drag the tiller over to windward and pa.s.s a turn of the tiller rope round the head of it, to help the felucca to pay off; for she was now gathering headway. Then I sprang to the taffrail and looked over it. The pursuing boat had actually overtaken us, and the man who pulled "bow," having laid in his oar, had grabbed the gunwale of the small boat in which I had come off from the sh.o.r.e--and which I had dropped astern upon boarding the felucca--and was now hauling his own boat up alongside her, while some half-dozen of his companions had risen to their feet and were scrambling into the smaller boat, apparently with some idea of climbing aboard us by shinning up her painter. But the felucca had by this time gathered way, and was moving so fast through the water that it was as much as the man could do to hold on, and quite beyond his power to haul the one boat any closer to the other. For a couple of breathless seconds longer he hung on desperately, and then, with a yell of savage disappointment, was obliged to let go, while somebody in the stern--I fancy it must have been Fernandez--seeing how things were going, shouted to the crew to throw out their oars again and give way. But before this could be done the big boat was half-a-dozen fathoms astern, and we were leaving her so rapidly that for her to overtake us was a manifest impossibility.

Meanwhile the small boat, with six men in her, was towing astern of the felucca, with her nose raised high in the air and the water bubbling and boiling up to the level of the top of her transom, and even slopping in over it occasionally, so that it was impossible for any of her occupants to move, lest by so doing they should cause her to fill and swamp. The said occupants therefore did what they could in the way of relieving their feelings by vigorously anathematising us in good sonorous Spanish, and explaining, in short, pithy sentences, the sort of treatment that we might confidently look for when next they got us into their power. Then one of them happened to remember that all this time a brace of loaded pistols were sticking in his belt, whereupon he whipped them out and blazed away at us, his companions promptly following suit, but, luckily, without doing us the slightest injury.

By this time the felucca was rapidly nearing the weathermost extremity of the island that guarded and masked the entrance of the bay, and presently we weathered it handsomely and bore up to pa.s.s out to sea, gliding between the two Heads a minute later. We were now fairly outside, and with the first plunge of the little vessel's sharp stem into the surges that met us as we swept into the open sea a yell of dismay arose from the occupants of the boat astern, who cried out that they were being swamped, and implored us, for the love of all the saints, to cast them off before they were washed out and drowned. I could not resist the temptation to retort that even, if that happened, they would still be getting less than their deserts; then, adding that I hoped I should soon have the pleasure of seeing them all hanged at Gallows Point, I cast off the painter and set them adrift, leaving them to get back into the cove as best they could, with only one pair of small oars among them. We stood on, close-hauled, until we had gained an offing of about three miles, when we put the helm down, tacked, and lay-to, it being my intention to remain off the entrance of the pirates'

cove until daylight, in order that I might obtain bearings and landmarks, which would enable me to identify the locality of the spot upon my return to destroy the settlement--as I was determined to do.

It was well that I took this precaution, for when daylight came we found that, so admirably had nature masked the cove, it was impossible for us to discover it until we again stood close in; and even then we could by no means make sure of the spot until we were within a cable's length of it. Then, however, by means of a carefully taken set of compa.s.s bearings, I obtained the means which would enable me to run in from a distance and hit off the place with unerring precision.

We duly arrived in Port Royal harbour early on the fourth morning after our escape from Pirate Cove--as by common consent we called it--our pa.s.sage being of a perfectly uneventful character. As may be supposed, I kept a sharp lookout for the arrival of the Admiral from Kingston; and the moment that his barge hove in sight I hailed a sh.o.r.e boat--the felucca not possessing a boat of any kind--and landed for the purpose of making my report.

He was surprised, but at the same time very pleased to see me, shaking me warmly by the hand as the office messenger closed the door behind me, after showing me into his presence.

"Well, youngster," he exclaimed, "I am very glad to see you back again, all alive and kicking; for to tell you the truth you have been absent so long that I had given you and the _Wasp_ up for lost. Well, and what luck have you had? Strange that I did not notice the little schooner at anchor as I came down; for I have been on the lookout for her now a long while."

"Ah!" I replied; "I am grieved to say, Sir Peter, that you will never again set eyes on the _Wasp_, for she lies at the bottom of the Sea of Hayti, with all her crew, I am afraid, save myself and two others."

"Tut, tut, tut!" exclaimed the Admiral; "that is bad news indeed. Tell me how it happened."

As briefly as possible I related the entire history of the cruise, including my adventures upon the island of Hayti, and my escape from the pirates, winding up by pointing out the felucca, which lay in full view of the office window.

The old gentleman remained silent and sunk in deep thought for several minutes after I had concluded my story, shaking his head occasionally as he thought the matter over. At length, however, he looked up, and said:

"It is a sad business, very sad, losing all those poor fellows, but I do not blame you, boy, in the least; you did what you could, and did it very well, too! To fight and beat off so immensely superior a force as that of the pirates was a very creditable feat, I consider; and all might have been well had it not been for that gale springing up at so inopportune a moment. Well, well, it cannot be helped; these things happen sometimes, in spite of all that we can do. But there is generally a lesson to be learned from every mishap, if we will but look for it, and the lesson conveyed in this case is that we made a mistake in the arming of the _Wasp_. Instead of fitting her with those six long 9-pounders, we ought to have mounted a long 18 and a long 32 upon her deck, then you would have been able to play a game of long bowls with the pirates and fight them upon practically equal terms. As it was, you were badly peppered before you could reach her at all with your own guns. Well, it cannot now be helped; the little hooker is gone, and there's an end of it. Now, the thing to consider is what is next to be done. What is your own idea? You have been among the rascals, and know their strength; I suppose you have some sort of a notion of how they can best be circ.u.mvented, eh?"

"Yes, sir," I said. "It seems to me that there are two ways of dealing with the pirates. One way is, to waylay their schooner at sea, capture her, and then go into the Cove and destroy the settlement. To do that effectively we must have a vessel as fast, as heavily armed, and as strongly manned as their own craft--"

"Which we don't happen to possess just now, worse luck!" cut in the Admiral. "What is your other plan?"

I explained the alternative scheme--which I regarded as the more effective of the two--in pretty full detail; and as I unfolded it I saw the old gentleman's eyes begin to sparkle. When at length I came to an end he dashed his fist down upon the table, and exclaimed with enthusiasm:

"That's the plan, boy; that ought to do the trick! But I've no vessel to spare you, so you'll have to take the felucca, and do the best you can with her. Strictly speaking, you know, I ought to put you under arrest, and not employ you again until after you have been tried for the loss of the _Wasp_; but the circ.u.mstances are such that we cannot afford to waste time in mere formalities just now; and I will take the responsibility of sending you to sea again at once. You will be a bit crowded aboard the little hooker, I'm afraid, but that can't be helped; and if all goes well it ought not to be for long. Now, go and find Carline, talk over the matter with him, and then come up to the Pen to dinner to-night--seven o'clock, sharp--and report to me what you have arranged."

I took the hint, and went, very well pleased, on the whole, with the result of my interview. For I must confess that I had gone to that interview not altogether without trepidation; it was quite possible--I had told myself--that the Admiral might find fault with the manner in which I had engaged the pirate schooner; he might have picked holes in my tactics, or something of that sort; he might even have considered that the _Wasp_ might have been saved, after the fight, had we acted otherwise than we did; but, to my great relief, there was not a word of blame from him; on the contrary, he had murmured a word or two of approval here and there while I had been telling my tale, and was now about to prove his undiminished confidence in me by entrusting me with the command of another expedition against the same formidable foe. I could not possibly have hoped for a more favourable reception.

I soon found the Master-Attendant, and inexorably b.u.t.ton-holed him while I explained what I wanted done, although the poor man was frightfully busy just then, several ships being in harbour, refitting after having been in action with the enemy. But, let him protest as he might, I would not release him until he had agreed to do everything that I required; the result being that when the dockyard men knocked off work to go to dinner that day, the felucca was already alongside the wharf, and more than half her ballast out of her; while, when the dockyard bell rang at six o'clock that night, signalling the cessation of work for the day, her hold had been swept clean, a quant.i.ty of dunnage laid in it, and four 68-pounders stowed on the top thereof, well packed up all round to prevent them from shifting when the craft was at sea. But although I remained on the spot until the last moment, supervising matters in order that everything might be done to my satisfaction, I still managed to reach the Pen by seven o'clock--a smart sailing boat up to Kingston, and a ketureen from thence out to the Pen being my means of conveyance.

Sir Peter was as much surprised as pleased when I reported to him the amount of progress that I had made during the day.

"It is wonderful!" he exclaimed. "How in the world did you manage it?"

"Simply by sticking to the Master-Attendant, and so preventing him from doing anything else until he had attended to my requirements," I replied.

The Admiral laughed in enjoyment of the picture his mind conjured up of the Master-Attendant vainly trying to shake me off.

"Poor Carline!" he remarked. "How he must have suffered before he could bring himself to the point of setting aside all his other work to attend to you. He is a good man, a most excellent fellow in every way; but he has one fault--he allows himself to be too much trammelled by routine.

With him everything, irrespective of its importance, must be attended to in its proper order; and now that you have jolted him out of his groove it will be days before he will be able to get comfortably back into it."

I have no doubt Sir Peter was right, but I did not wait to see; all I know is that by noon the next day I had brought the unhappy man into the frame of mind that caused him to yield prompt attention to my requirements, rather than waste valuable time in a fruitless endeavour to evade them; with the result that, three days later, the felucca was ready for the next expedition which I was to lead against the pirates.

The moment that my preparations were complete I reported to the Admiral, and received his formal instructions to proceed to sea at once; and that same evening we weighed and stood out of harbour with the first of the land-breeze. We now had to make a pa.s.sage to windward; and although I hugged the southern coast of Jamaica as closely as I dared, thus availing myself to the fullest possible extent of the land-breeze as far as Morant Point, it was not until daybreak of the ninth day after sailing from Port Royal that we arrived off the entrance to the Pirate Cove. Here we were baffled for a couple of hours, waiting for the springing up of the sea-breeze; but we caught the first breathing of it, and took it in with us, arriving at the anchorage about one bell in the forenoon watch.

My plan of campaign was perfectly simple. I intended to enter the Cove, and, if the pirate schooner should happen to be in harbour, run straight alongside her, and board before her crew should have time to clear away their guns and bring them to bear upon the felucca.

I had a strong enough crew to do this, and had no doubt as to our ability to carry the schooner in the face of the most determined resistance that the pirates could offer. Then, the schooner captured and her crew safely confined below, the establishment ash.o.r.e would have no alternative but to surrender at discretion, or be annihilated by the schooner's guns. There was only one weak point that I could see in this scheme, which was that a considerable number of the men const.i.tuting the sh.o.r.e portion of the establishment might escape into the interior of the island, unless some means were devised to prevent them. It was, however, not very difficult to accomplish this; for it will be remembered that there was but one way of entrance to--and egress from-- the Cove on the land side, namely, a narrow and very dangerous zigzag path down the face of the perpendicular cliff, a gap in which, wide enough to prevent all effectual possibility of pa.s.sage that way, might easily be made by the explosion of a bag of powder. The preparations for the little expedition which was to accomplish this piece of work were made during the time that we were lying becalmed off the mouth of the Cove; and when at length we entered, a boat, containing four seamen in charge of a midshipman, who had been most carefully instructed concerning the precise nature of the duty which he was to perform, was cast adrift, just inside the Heads, but outside the islet which masked the entrance. While they pulled away for the sh.o.r.e we in the felucca stood on into the Cove, every man of us with his sword or cutla.s.s girded to his waist, and a brace of loaded pistols thrust into his belt, standing ready to leap aboard the schooner--should she happen to be in the roadstead.

We had no sooner cleared the islet, however, and fairly entered the Cove, than we discovered that the schooner was not in harbour, and that consequently we should be obliged to adopt the modification of plan which I had devised in view of such a very possible contingency. But although the _Tiburon_ was not in the Cove, the anchorage was not tenantless, a brig of some two hundred and seventy tons being moored therein, while apparently every boat belonging to the settlement, as well as her own, was pa.s.sing to and fro between her and the sh.o.r.e, those bound sh.o.r.eward being loaded to the gunwale, while those coming from it were light. At the first glimpse of this somewhat unexpected sight, I jumped to the conclusion that the vessel was a prize; but almost instantly I remembered that, in addition to the _Tiburon_, the pirates owned a brig, by means of which they disposed of such captured booty as they did not require for their own use, purchasing with the proceeds other goods of which they stood in need; and I had very little doubt that the craft before us was the brig in question. Be that as it might, our first task was, obviously, to secure possession of the vessel; and the felucca was accordingly at once headed for her.

So busily employed were the pirates aboard the brig in the task of hoisting out cargo and striking it into the boats alongside that we were quite half-way across the bay before they discovered our presence, although the people ash.o.r.e, who were unloading the boats, did their utmost to warn their comrades, by hailing and pointing. But no sooner was the felucca seen and recognised than the whole place was thrown into a state of consternation. The alarm bell ash.o.r.e was rung, the people made a dash for their weapons, and then, tumbling the goods haphazard out of the boats on to the sand, sprang in and pulled might and main for the brig, while those on board her swarmed up out of the hold and down over the side into the half-loaded or empty boats, and gave way for the sh.o.r.e in a very panic of confusion.

But although the brig was moored well in, so that the boats pa.s.sing to and fro might have but a short distance to travel, we in the felucca were alongside and had secured undisputed possession of the vessel before the boats with their armed crews had traversed half the distance between her and the sh.o.r.e; seeing which, the occupants paused and drew together, as if to confer and to await further developments. Of this brief pause we promptly availed ourselves by getting the brig under way and working her and the felucca out toward the entrance, when, much to our astonishment, the boats with one accord turned round and pulled back to the beach. This unexpected action on their part was a great relief to me, for I had fully expected that they would make a concerted effort to recapture the brig, or the felucca, or both, by boarding, in which case we should have had our hands full, and must almost certainly have lost a few men. But probably they believed the felucca to be armed with cannon, and fully expected to be received with liberal doses of grape and canister, which would fully account for their sudden and unexpected display of prudence. Be that as it may, we were allowed to work both craft out to sea without molestation; when, having hurriedly overhauled our prize and found that she was amply provisioned for a much longer voyage than that to Port Royal, I put her in command of my second midshipman, with a prize-crew of ten men, and, giving him instructions to report to the Admiral without delay, dispatched him forthwith. Then, transferring myself and the remainder of my following back to the felucca, we re-entered the Cove and came to an anchor outside of but close to the islet that masked the entrance, and in such a position that the little craft could be warped right in alongside a bit of cliff that dropped sheer down into the water. We had scarcely done this when a deep, hollow _boom_, echoing and re-echoing along the face of the cliff that enclosed the Cove, told us that the party which had been dispatched to breach the road up the face of the cliff, and so cut off the retreat of the pirates toward the interior of the island, had accomplished its task.

Time was now all important to us; for, of course, we could not tell at what moment Garcia, the arch-pirate, and his crew in the _Tiburon_, might put in an appearance upon the scene; and we had a few very important preparations to make before we could consider ourselves ready to deal with him; therefore we had no sooner let go the felucca's anchor than we lowered the only other boat that we had brought with us, and ran warps away to the sh.o.r.e of the islet, securing them to such rocks as were most convenient for our purpose. This done, we warped the little craft right in alongside the cliff, and made her secure; after which our next task was to carry ash.o.r.e two stout hawsers which we had brought with us for the purpose, and convey them to the top of the cliff under which the felucca lay moored. Then we rigged a pair of sheers over the vessel's hatchway, and proceeded to hoist our 68-pounders out of the hold--one at a time, of course. Then, having got the first gun on deck--already prepared in Port Royal dockyard, by being encased in a stout cylindrical packing of planks--we pa.s.sed the bights of our two hawsers round it, one at each end, and with all hands tailing on--except one, whom we set to watch as a sentinel--proceeded to parbuckle it up the face of the cliff. It was a stiff job, but, all our preparations having been made beforehand, everything went without a hitch; and when we knocked off work for the night all four guns were landed, together with their carriages; while, so far as we could discover, the pirates ash.o.r.e remained in absolute ignorance not only of our doings but also of our whereabouts.

The same night, waiting until the darkness was sufficient to hide our movements from the pirates ash.o.r.e, the gunner, the boatswain, the carpenter and I ascended to the highest point of the little islet, in search of a suitable spot upon which to construct our projected battery, and were fortunate enough to find it on the very summit itself. It was, indeed, perfectly ideal for its purpose, for it commanded not only the whole of the interior of the Cove, with the settlement ash.o.r.e, but also both entrances, and the open sea, for a s.p.a.ce of about a mile. And it possessed the further advantage that it needed but very little labour to completely adapt it for our purpose. So eager was I to complete our preparations that I would fain have set the men to work upon it that night; but they had already done extraordinarily well in getting the four guns landed and mounted upon their carriages; I therefore decided, though somewhat reluctantly, to let them have a long, unbroken night's rest; and when the next day arrived I was glad that I had been wise enough to do so, for they came to their work fresh, and laboured with a will. As for me, I spent the night doing sentry-go, for I fully expected to receive a visit from the sh.o.r.e some time during the hours of darkness. But nothing happened; and when at length day dawned and I was relieved, I was inclined to believe that our efforts to conceal our presence on the island from the pirates had been successful.

With the dawning of a new day, however, the critical period was past, and I cared very little whether the inhabitants of the settlement did or did not discover our whereabouts. We, therefore, got all hands to work the moment that it was light enough to see; and by the time that the pirates ash.o.r.e began to show themselves, two of our four 68-pounders were in place on the spot which we had chosen for our battery, and were ready to open fire at a moment's notice. But the Cove was too small, and the islet too close to the settlement for us to conceal our whereabouts or our movements, when once we began to work upon the summit, where we were in full view of every eye within a range of a couple of miles; and the pirates ash.o.r.e had not been on the move more than half-an-hour before it became apparent that our presence had been discovered. The indications that this was the case were clear and unmistakable; the alarm bell clanged out its summons, and instantly all work ceased and every man was seen to be hurrying toward the building in which I had been interviewed by Fernandez upon my arrival in the settlement. This could mean but one thing, namely, a speedy attack upon the islet; and in antic.i.p.ation of this we hastened the completion of our preparations, so that we might be quite ready to meet that attack when it came. Our first business was to get the remaining two guns into position, and bring up to the battery our entire stock of ammunition.

This did not cost us more than half-an-hour's strenuous labour, at the completion of which all hands went to work to tumble a sufficient quant.i.ty of ballast into the felucca to enable her to stand up under sail; and the moment that this was done I sent her out to sea, with a midshipman and four hands on board--in order that she might not fall into the hands of the pirates--with instructions to return only when the British ensign should be displayed from the battery.

Scarcely was the felucca under way when the sentinel who had been left in the battery, to keep watch upon the movements of the pirates ash.o.r.e, summoned us to our posts; and upon our arrival there we at once saw that our preparations had not been completed a moment too soon. For, as we topped the hill that obstructed the view of the Cove from the seaward side of the islet, we saw the whole male population of the settlement, numbering about one hundred and forty, marching down to the beach, with the evident intention of embarking in their boats and pulling off to attack us. With the aid of my telescope I could distinctly distinguish the figure of Fernandez, who was a.s.suming the direction of operations; and I could not but admire the strictness of the discipline which he appeared to exercise over his followers, for the fellows seemed amenable to his briefest order. They possessed exactly twenty boats in all, ranging in size from a craft capable of accommodating forty men down to the little Norwegian dinghy in which I had made my escape, and it was evident that every man of the party had been previously told off to some particular boat; for upon their arrival at the beach the hitherto compact body at once dissolved into twenty separate detachments, each of which made its way, in a perfectly orderly manner, to a particular boat; the whole flotilla being launched and manned at Fernandez' word of command. This done, the boats were turned round with their bows pointing straight for the islet, and--again at the word of command--the oars, as one, dropped into the water and the expedition advanced to the attack in a long straight line.

The boats had not so much as a single gun among them, their crew being armed simply with cutla.s.s, pistol, and musket; I therefore felt no apprehension at all concerning the result of the coming conflict, but rather a somewhat unaccountable pity for the unfortunate wretches who seemed to be quite unaware that they were advancing to their doom. But this singular feeling of pity was quickly swamped by the reflection of the fate that would certainly be ours, should we by any chance be foolish enough to let the pirates get the better of us; and since it was important that we should make the utmost of our opportunities, I gave orders for the four guns to be loaded with grape and carefully aimed at the four largest boats. This was done, and the four pieces spoke their deadly message almost simultaneously, the smoke momentarily obscuring our vision, while the thunder of the discharge echoed and re-echoed round the cliffs in a long series of slowly decreasing reverberations.

But long before these had died away the breeze had swept aside the pall of smoke that hid the boats from us, and we saw that, so carefully had the guns been aimed, each shot had taken effect, the four boats at which they had been discharged being now mere shapeless ma.s.ses of wreckage, among which a few men struggled, here and there, to keep themselves afloat.

The casualties among the pirates must have been appalling, for I estimated that those four boats, being the largest in the entire flotilla, must have contained at least half the total number of men comprising the expedition, and, so far as I could ascertain, with the aid of my telescope, the survivors of the four crews scarcely numbered a dozen in all! Of course the nearest boats at once closed in upon the wreckage, with the object of rescuing those few survivors, and in so doing some half-a-dozen of them became bunched close together for about a minute. Such an opportunity was too good to be missed, and our guns having meanwhile been smartly loaded again, two of them were brought to bear upon the bunch, and simultaneously discharged. The result of these two shots was scarcely as effective as that of the previous discharge-- possibly because the gun-captains had become a little flurried and excited--nevertheless two of the boats aimed at were blown to pieces, while two or three of the others showed signs of more or less serious damage, and the occupants were thrown into such dire confusion that, abandoning all further effort to save their comrades, they took to their oars and seemed intent only upon getting apart as quickly as possible, an example which was immediately followed by the remaining boats, the crews of which opened out until there was at least a couple of fathoms of clear water separating boat from boat.

For a few seconds I was under the impression that the havoc thus quickly wrought by our guns had so far discouraged the pirates that they intended to abandon the attack upon the islet--for there were several very evident signs of hesitation among them--but presently, apparently in response to the exhortations of Fernandez, who pulled along the line in a fast gig, the oars dipped once more, and the remnant of the flotilla most gallantly resumed its advance, amid cheers and yells of encouragement and defiance that clearly reached us on the islet.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

THE EXTERMINATION OF THE PIRATES.

Nothing could possibly have been better, from our point of view, than the foolhardy gallantry of the pirates in thus persistently pressing home their attack upon the islet, for the advantage was all on our side, and must remain so until the enemy had landed and come to hand-grips with us; and it was imperative that, in order to ensure our own success, as many as possible of our foes should be put _hors de combat_ before the fight became a hand-to-hand melee. It certainly seemed, at the first blush, to be rather cowardly to pelt the poor beggars with grape while they were unable to strike a blow in return; but the feeling was, after all, one of very weak, false sentimentality. Every man of them was an outlaw and, even if not yet an actual murderer at least a potential one, and a consorter with cruel, cowardly brutes in human shape who would destroy without mercy if they were not themselves destroyed--who were, in fact, worse than wild beasts; for whereas the latter take life merely to satisfy the cravings of nature, the average pirate slew for the sheer love of slaying, and in order that he might gratify the unnatural l.u.s.t that caused him to revel in the sight of human suffering. Therefore, after the first qualm of reluctance, I felt no compunction in ordering the gunners to ply their weapons upon the advancing enemy with all the skill at their command. And right willingly did the men obey my order, sponging, loading, priming, pointing, and firing with the fell determination of men who knew that they must slay or themselves be slain; aiming so carefully that every shot was made to tell with disastrous effect; so that the advancing boats gradually fell into confusion as shot after shot whistled through them, sinking a boat here, shattering another there, and killing or maiming so many of her crew that she could neither advance farther nor retire, but lay upon the water a mere drifting, blood-bespattered wreck.

Had the distance between the beach and the islet been half as far again as it actually was, there can be no doubt that the entire expedition would have been swept out of existence; as it was, nine out of the twenty boats which left the settlement survived to reach the islet, and were grounded upon the beach just below the battery. As the keels grated in upon the shingle their crews sprang out, dragged the boats well up, so that they would not go adrift, and then, sinking upon one knee, emptied their muskets at us, to cover the landing of their comrades; we, on our part, holding our fire in readiness to meet the rush upon the battery that was now imminent.

Here Fernandez, still unwounded, exhibited the only bit of sound generalship that had distinguished the attack; for instead of allowing his men to charge up the slope promiscuously as they landed, to be cut down or bowled over by our pistols, in detail, he ordered them to form up, in single file and open order, until the last boat had arrived, probably guessing that we were without muskets, and knowing that he and his men were for the moment beyond pistol-shot. Then, after allowing them time to recharge their muskets, and a minute or two additional in which to recover their breath and prepare for the desperate up-hill rush at the battery, he gave the word to advance, himself leading the way, while we, with naked cutla.s.s in one hand and pistol in the other, crouched behind our low breastwork, watching the toiling figures scrambling and struggling up the steep, almost precipitous slope.

They had advanced about half-way, and Fernandez, still leading, was just about within pistol range, when I rose to my feet, sprang up on the low earth parapet which we had constructed, raised my sword above my head, and, in as loud and authoritative a voice as I could command, shouted, in Spanish:

"Halt!"