CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.
I PLAN A MOST DARING AND HAZARDOUS ENTERPRISE.
Our run across to the Main was uneventful, and on the sixth morning outfrom Port Royal we made Point Gallinas, arriving off Cartagena sometwenty hours afterwards.
By great good luck the weather happened to be favourable for ourimmediate embarkation upon our adventure, so after a further and finalchat with Hoard, the schooner was headed in for the land. The night wasdark as pitch, the sky being overcast, and there was a gentle breezeblowing off the land, affording us smooth water for the delicateoperation of landing. But there was no time to be lost, it wanting onlyfour hours to daylight, by which time it would be necessary that theschooner should have secured a good offing; so, having under Hoard'spilotage stood in until the lead gave us twenty-one fathoms--at whichpoint Hoard informed us that we might consider ourselves half a milefrom the land--the gig was lowered, and, with her crew armed to theteeth, we shoved off, the second mate being in charge, with Hoard andmyself sitting on either side of him in the stern-sheets, the formerstill acting as pilot. We paddled gently in, with muffled oars, and inthe course of about ten minutes the boat gently grounded on a narrowstrip of smooth, sandy beach at the base of a low, rugged cliff in ashallow bay. Here Hoard and I landed, the second mate receivinginstructions to be at the same spot with the boat and a small supply ofcooked provisions every night at midnight, and to remain a couple ofhours, when, if he saw nothing of either of us, he was to return to theschooner until the next night.
We stood on the beach until the boat had shoved off again and was lostin the darkness, when we turned away, and, Hoard leading, proceeded toclimb the face of the cliff, which was by no means a difficult matter,as the ground, although somewhat precipitous, was grass-grown andthickly dotted with low, sturdy bushes. Five minutes sufficed us toreach the top, when we found ourselves facing a hillside, rising on ourright to a very respectable height. This, however, was not the hill towhich Hoard had alluded in his conversation with me. To reach thelatter we should have to walk about a mile, he informed me; so, havingpaused for a minute or two to get our breath after our unwontedexertions, we struck inland, passing over the spur of the hill on ourright and dipping down into a shallow valley, along which we passed,steering a southerly course for a pair of steep, lofty hills, thesummits of which were within half a mile of each other. The moresoutherly of these two was the one for which I was bound, and an hour'ssteady climbing carried us to the top of it, when we lay down in thelong grass among the bushes, and, regardless of insects and possiblereptiles, snatched a catnap while we waited for daylight.
At daybreak we roused up, and, making our way to a clear space on thevery summit of the hill, looked abroad at the scene. Seaward, the oceanstretched away, a vast plain of delicate blue, to the horizon, and sometwenty miles in the offing we made out a speck of white, gleaming in thebrilliant morning sun, which we decided must be the schooner. Then,turning our backs upon the sea, we had the hilly foreground of theisland before us, sloping away to right and left and in front of us downto the smooth, placid waters of the spacious harbour. On our right wasthe Boca Chica, the only entrance to the harbour, a narrow, windingchannel with a sort of bar at its inner extremity, whereon, Hoardinformed me, there is scarcely four fathoms of water. Nevertheless,viewed from the elevation which I occupied, the navigation of thechannel appeared simple enough, the submerged sand-banks on each side ofit showing up quite clearly through the blue water. At the innerextremity of the channel lies the outer harbour, a sheet of waterroughly circular in shape, and measuring some four miles across ineither direction. I noticed a few small shoals dotted about here andthere in this outer harbour, but there was only one that appeared to beat all dangerous, and that one was to be easily avoided. The northernboundary of the outer harbour seemed to be pretty well defined by acluster of decidedly dangerous shoals stretching right across from theisland of Tierra Bomba to the mainland, but with fairly wide channels ofdeep water between, and north of this lay what might be termed theintermediate harbour. This is a sheet of water of about half the areaof the outer harbour, with a good clean bottom and plenty of water. Itis formed by a shoal uniting the island of Tierra Bomba with themainland, a reef of rocks projecting above the sand and rendering theBoca Grande--once the main entrance to the harbour--quite impassable byanything larger than a boat. Then, inside this again, and renderedespecially safe and snug by being inclosed by two long, low, projectingspits with a narrow channel between them, is the inner harbour, havingan area of about three-quarters of a square mile, with plenty of waterfor the largest ships. The head of this harbour washes the walls andwharves of the town of Cartagena; indeed it does more, for, as Hoardinformed me, it divides the town into two nearly equal parts, the tideflowing right through it and for some distance beyond. In this innerharbour lay quite a fleet of small coasting-craft, and towering highamong them all could be made out the tall spars of the galleon.Immediately in front of us, and on the opposite side of the harbour, thecountry was low, swampy, and thickly covered with scrub and bush, amongwhich could be made out the whitewashed mud walls of the villages ofBuenavista, Gospique, and Albornos, in the latter of which Hoard'sfriend Panza had his habitation. The fishing-boats from these villageswere dotted all over the bay--they had probably been out all night,--andhaving pointed out to me the several objects of interest in the noblescene that stretched around us, my companion intimated that the time hadarrived for him to leave me, as he intended to get a passage across tothe mainland forthwith, and then make his way to the town for thepurpose of acquiring information. He cautioned me to keep a brightlook-out for chance stragglers, and to carefully avoid them, for heassured me that, if discovered, I should certainly be dragged off to thetown, and probably meet with the same fate that he had suffered. Andfinally, he undertook to return, if possible, the next night to the spotwhereon we then stood, adding that, should he fail to appear, I was notto be alarmed. I watched him make his way down the hillside, lost sightof him among the bush, and finally made him out again, with the aid ofmy glass, just as he was entering a little hamlet on the harbour shoreof the island. I watched him sauntering hither and thither among thedozen or so of huts that composed the hamlet, saw him engage inconversation with several people, and at length observed him making hisway down to the beach, accompanied by a couple of men. The trio entereda boat and pushed off, and I watched the crazy craft heading straightacross the harbour to the village of Gospique, from whence I concludedhe would make the best of his way to Albornos.
I had now the rest of the day before me in which to look round and makemy observations, and I determined to do so to the utmost extent of myability. But I was by this time hungry and thirsty, so before doinganything else I sought out a comfortable spot in the shadow of a clumpof bush, and sat down to discuss a portion of the viands that I had beencareful to bring with me. Then, my meal finished, I produced pencil andpaper, and proceeded to very carefully draw a map of the harbour,preserving as accurately as I could the just proportions of everyfeature, and marking the shoals in their proper places, as also thebattery guarding the entrance channel, and the position of the villagesdotted here and there along the shore. I had taken the precaution tobring a small pocket-compass with me, and this I found most useful as ameans of laying down the bearings of the various features from my pointof observation. By drawing the whole roughly to scale, judging mydistances as accurately as possible, and freely using my pocket-compass,I found that by the end of the day I had secured a sketch map that hadthe appearance of being fairly accurate. Not a soul came near methroughout the day, but several small craft passed out of or into theharbour, and these afforded verification of Hoard's statement as to theextraordinary precautions observed by the authorities, every one of thembeing obliged to heave-to until a boat from the battery had boardedthem. A large ship, apparently a Spanish Indiaman, also arrived prettylate in the afternoon, so that I had an opportunity of witnessing formyself the manner in which suc
h craft made their way through the channelto the inner anchorage.
At length, when the sun was within an hour of setting, I observed afishing-boat under sail emerge from among the group of islets that blockthe approach to the village of Albornos, and it presently became evidentthat she was making for the island, on the highest point of which I wasperched. I brought my telescope to bear upon her, but for some time wasunable to distinguish her occupants, the sail being in my way. Atlength, however, one of them moved forward and stood for a few minutesunder the lee of the sail, and the boat being by this time more thanhalf-way across, I was able to recognise the ragged habiliments worn byHoard when we took him off the wreck of the _Magdalena_, and which hehad resumed for the occasion. The sun was just dipping beneath thewestern horizon, and the shadow of the island of Tierra Bomba hadenshrouded the waters of the harbour in a soft dusk, when the boatentered a shallow lagoon at the north-eastern extremity of the island,and grounded on the low, swampy shore. I saw Hoard disembark and standtalking with his companions for a few minutes, and then the boat shovedoff again and made her way to about mid-channel, when her crew dousedher sail and proceeded to shoot their nets. Meanwhile I had lost sightof Hoard behind a hill that lay between me and the lagoon where he hadlanded, and I saw no more of him until he suddenly appeared against thestar-lit sky only a few paces from me.
"Well, sir," said he, as he ranged up alongside, "I've got some news foryou, and no mistake; but I greatly doubt whether it'll be veryacceptable."
"How so?" I exclaimed; "has anything gone wrong?"
"Well, I don't exactly know about `gone wrong'," was his reply; "but theway of it is this: The galleon is finished loadin', and her hatches ison. The gold is expected to arrive in the town to-morrow evening, andif it does, it'll be got aboard the day after to-morrow; and next daythree hundred sojers is to be marched aboard of her, and she'll thensail for Europe!"
"Three hundred soldiers!" exclaimed I incredulously. "No wonder thatthey consider the vessel capable of making her way home without aconvoy!"
"Ay, you may well say so, sir," was the reply. "It seems that the wholething have been planned out for a long time. These three hundred sojersis to go home as invalids, so I hear; and the relief has arrived to-dayin the Injieman that, mayhap, you saw come into the harbour thisa'ternoon. She's been expected this three weeks, so my friend Panzatells me."
"Well," said I, "that is, as you say, news indeed; and it was a mostfortunate thing that we came ashore, as we did. Had we simply dodgedoff and on, waiting for the galleon to come out, those three hundredsoldiers would have done for us. You say that the gold train isexpected to arrive to-morrow. Is this expectation pure conjecture, orhave they reason for it?"
"Oh, they've reason enough for it, sir; so I understand," answeredHoard. "You see, the shippin' off of this here gold is the talk of thetown; nobody's thinkin' of anything else; and everything that happensconcernin' it is knowed at once all over the place. That's how I got mynews. Panza had heard all about it, and as soon as he sees me he startstalkin' about it, not knowin' that I'd been shipped off in the_Magdalena_; and I just let him talk, puttin' in a question here andthere until I'd found out all about it. As to the gold train, I don'tthink there's much doubt about it, because the news in the town is thata runner came in from Barranca this morning with a message from thecommandant that the train had arrived there last night, and might beexpected at Cartagena some time to-morrow, most likely pretty late inthe evening. I was wondering whether it 'ud be possible for us to layin wait for the train somewhere on the road, and get hold of the goldthat way; but that plan ain't any good, because the three hundred sojersthat's to go home in the ship are comin' down with it; and sixty menagain' three hundred is rather long odds."
"Yes," I agreed, "too long for my purpose, at all events; for I have nodoubt that the rascals would make a stubborn fight for it; and even ifwe should succeed in capturing the gold, we should certainly lose a goodnumber of our men, while I want to get the gold, and the ship too,without any loss at all, if it can be managed."
"Ay, sir," answered Hoard. "But I don't see how it can."
"Well, I have a plan," said I, "and you, perhaps, with your knowledge ofthe place, will be able to tell me what chance there is of its beingsuccessful. And, first of all, do you happen to know how many men arestationed in that battery there that guards the entrance channel?"
"Yes, sir, I think I can tell you pretty nearly," answered Hoard;"because, d'ye see, afore I was sent aboard the _Magdalena_ I was one ofthe slaves that had to man the water-boat that took 'em their dailysupply of fresh water, there bein' none on the island. How many men?Well, I should say that, countin' all hands, officers and men together,there's a matter of nigh on to eighty of 'em."
"No more than that?"
"No, sir; certainly not more than eighty. Call 'em eighty, and you'llnot be very far wrong; over the mark a trifle, if anything."
"Very well, then," said I. "This is my plan. You say that the gold isto be put aboard the galleon the day after to-morrow. The fact of itsshipment must be absolutely established, and, in order that it may beso, I propose that you shall remain ashore--if you think you can do sowithout fear of discovery--and witness for yourself the loading of it.Then, when it is all aboard the ship, you will make the best of your wayacross to this island, and wait for me at the spot where we landed lastnight. I shall come ashore with all the boats and the whole of thecrew, except the idlers, fully armed. Then, if the gold has beenshipped, we will land on a little strip of sandy beach at the seawardend of the channel, which I noticed to-day, march across the point, andtake the battery, spiking the guns. And, when this is done, we willpull up the harbour, board the galleon, and carry her out to sea beforethe soldiers are embarked."
"The very thing, sir! the very thing!" exclaimed Hoard delightedly."What a fool I was not to think of such a simple plan as that myself!Yes, sir, it'll do, I don't doubt. The sojers is sure not to be putaboard that night; they'll give 'em a day or two to rest after theirjourney down the country, not for the sake of the men, sir, but becausethe officers 'll want it."
"Then you think that my plan will do?" asked I.
"Yes, sir, I do; I haven't a doubt about it," was the confident answer.
"Then, in that case," said I, "I shall go aboard the schooner to-night,leaving you ashore to find out all the news you can. I shall not comeashore to-morrow night, because there appears to be no need, and theless frequently that the schooner approaches the land the less will bethe danger of discovery. But the night after to-morrow, at midnight, Ishall be at the spot where we landed, with all the boats, and fullyprepared to capture the battery. So you must find means to meet methere. Are you quite sure that you will run no risk by remainingashore?"
"Oh, yes, sir; I shall be all right. Never fear for me! I know thetown now, and know how to take care of myself. But how will you manage,sir, supposin' that it happens to be blowin' strong, with the wind onthe shore, when you wants to land, the night after to-morrow?"
"Does that ever happen here?" I inquired, considerably taken aback bythe suggestion.
"It do sometimes, sir, but not often," answered Hoard. "Mostly the landbreeze springs up about eight o'clock, and blows until about seven inthe mornin'."
"Well," answered I, after considering awhile, "in the case that youmention, it appears to me that our best plan will be to make boldly forthe channel, the four boats keeping abreast, so as to show as little aspossible; let the wind blow them past the battery, and land in thelittle bay about half a mile inside. I noticed a big rock, the onlyone, jutting out of the sand there to-day. That should be a very goodspot at which to meet you."
"Yes, sir, I know the rock well; I've seen it hundreds of times,"remarked Hoard. "You can't do better, sir, unless the wind happens tobe off shore. If it is, the other plan will be best."
"Very well, then, that is understood," said I. "And now, how will youmanage about getting back to the mainland?"
> "Oh," remarked my companion, "I shall have to stay on this here islandall night. But Panza will keep a look-out for me and take me across to-morrow morning."
"Then," said I, "you had better walk with me as far as the beach, andget the fresh stock of provisions that they will bring ashore. And howare you off for money, in case you should want any?"
"Why, the fact is that I haven't got any, and I was goin' to ask you tolet me have some, sir; it might come handy," was the reply.
I happened to have a few dollars that I had taken the precaution to slipinto my pocket before leaving the ship; these I handed to him, and wethen sauntered slowly toward the spot where the boat was to meet us.
I went on board the schooner that night, and devoted the whole of thefollowing day to the preparations for our great _coup_, setting allhands to work sharpening cutlasses, cleaning pistols, effectuallymuffling the boats' oars and rowlocks, and, in fact, making everypossible provision that I could think of to ensure our success. And thenext day I made the men rest all day, so that they might be fit for along and arduous night's work.
It may be imagined that I kept an exceedingly anxious eye on thebarometer throughout that day, for I realised that the weather wouldhave much to do with the making or marring of our fortunes on theeventful night. The mercury remained steady in the tube until closeupon sunset, and then it began to drop a little, the drop continuinguntil it had gone down nearly three-tenths of an inch. I scarcely knewwhat to make of this; whether to expect a shift of wind and a strongbreeze, or whether it merely meant rain, or a thunder-storm. The sun,however, had scarcely set when we got a hint of what was to come, in theshape of a bank of dark, purplish, slate-coloured clouds that began topile themselves along the eastern horizon, their edges as sharplydefined against the clear sky as though the masses had been clipped outof paper. We were to be treated to a thunder-storm, and a pretty severeone, too, if the promise of those clouds was to be relied upon. We hadbeen hove-to all day, some twenty miles in the offing, under mainsailand jib only; so that, by keeping our canvas low, we might escapeobservation from the land, although I had but little fear of this unlessanyone happened to have wandered up to the top of one of the hills ofTierra Bomba, from which it would have been possible to see us. But themoment that the sun had fairly disappeared below the horizon, sail waspacked upon the schooner, and we proceeded to work in toward the land,my chief anxiety now being lest the thunder-storm should gather andbreak before we had succeeded in effecting a landing, in which case westood a very fair chance of being discovered, and of finding everybodyon the alert to give us a warm reception. We reached in, on thestarboard tack, until we were within about two miles of Punta de Canoas,when we hove about and reached along the land to the southward. By thistime the thunder-clouds had completely overspread the sky; it was asdark as the inside of a cavern, and the storm might burst upon us at anymoment. It hung off, however, and at length, much to my relief, wefound ourselves close to the northern extremity of Tierra Bomba, andwithin half a mile of the shore. It was so dark that it was quiteimpossible to see anything, the land merely showing as a slightly deepershadow against the intense blackness of the overcast sky. But I had sothoroughly studied all the natural features of the harbour and itssurroundings during my day's sojourn ashore that I now seemed to beperfectly familiar with them all. I therefore had no hesitationwhatever in hauling the schooner in under the lee of the island until wewere actually becalmed, when, the lead giving us a depth of barely fourfathoms, I let go the anchor and stripped the schooner of all hercanvas, not furling it, however, but simply passing a few turns of thegaskets, so that everything might be ready for making sail again at amoment's notice.
We were now, according to my judgment--for, as I have said, we couldactually see nothing,--in the shallow bay where Hoard and I had landedthree nights previously; and I believed, moreover, that we were so closeto the land as to be completely shut in and hidden, both from the northand from the south. Needless to say, I had long ago issued orders toextinguish all unnecessary lights, and for those that were indispensableto be closely masked. There was therefore nothing to betray to thesight our whereabouts; and as to sound, every sheave and tackle that wasin the least likely to be used had been so thoroughly greased that itworked in absolute silence, while the men, although shod for our trampacross the narrow point at the southern extremity of the island, hadlashed thick wads of oakum to the soles of their shoes, and consequentlymoved about the decks as silently as ghosts. Moreover, the boats hadall been so thoroughly prepared, hours beforehand, for the expedition,that there remained nothing whatever to be done but to lower them intothe water, unhook the tackles, and shove off. When we let go our anchorit still wanted a good hour to midnight; nevertheless, so anxious was Ilest the threatening storm should break, and the lightning betray ourmovements, that I determined to man the boats forthwith, and beach themif necessary, believing that thus we should run less risk of detection.
All these precautions, it must be understood, were adopted not so muchfrom any apprehension of ultimate failure, for I had determined to havethe galleon, but because I wanted to save my men. I now summonedSaunders down into the cabin, and read over to him the instructions thatI had carefully prepared for his guidance during the earlier part of theday, explained them to him fully, and then handed him the paper. Themen who were to accompany me on the expedition were next mustered in the'tween-decks and sent to supper, after which their weapons werecarefully inspected, and a liberal quantity of ammunition served out tothem; and then, when I had satisfied myself that all was right, I madethem a little speech, explaining what I purposed doing, and how I wantedit done; when, having enjoined them to observe the most absolutesilence, the light was extinguished, all hands groped their way on deck,the boats were lowered and manned, and we shoved off, each boat attachedby her painter to the one ahead, so that we might not part company inthe profound darkness. It was presently found, however, that thisprecaution was unnecessary, the water being so brilliantlyphosphorescent as to afford all the guidance that was needed; indeed,there was altogether too much luminosity to please me. We were evencloser to the shore than I had imagined, for we had not been under wayfive minutes, when the gig, in which I led the way, grounded upon thesand. And as she did so, I became aware of a weird, gaunt-lookingfigure, clad in rags, standing at the water's edge, close to the boat'sstem.
"All right, Cap'n, it's me--Hoard--sir," explained this figure, in alow, hoarse whisper, as I sprang ashore and gripped the fellow by thethroat. "There was nothing to keep me," he continued, as I relaxed mygrip upon him; "so I came right on here, thinkin' that, mayhap, you'd bea little bit afore your time, and wouldn't want to be kept waitin'.Everything is just as right, sir, as if you'd planned the whole thingyourself; the gold is all shipped; the _Senora_ has been hauled out tothe Manzanilla anchorage, ready to sail as soon as the sojers is shippedto-morrow morning; and the commandant is givin' a farewell _festa_, asthey calls it, to all the officers to-night; so that the chances are notone of 'em will think of goin' aboard until daylight."
"Good heavens!" I exclaimed; "what carelessness! what folly! I shouldhave thought they would have been afraid to leave so vast an amount oftreasure unguarded."
"Why so, sir?" demanded Hoard. "They believe that the whole thing hasbeen kept as secret as the grave--and so it would have been, too, butfor the wreck of the _Magdalena_--so they don't expect any such attackas you're preparin' for 'em. And as to anybody ashore attemptin' tomeddle with the ship--why, they'd sooner jump overboard and drowndtheirselves. So that it ain't so very wonderful, a'ter all, to my mind,that they believes their gold to be perfectly safe. Besides, there'sthe San Fernando battery: who'd ever dream of that bein' attacked andtook?"
"Well," said I, "it all seems fairly reasonable as you put it, Hoard;still I cannot understand such an extraordinary lack of precaution.But, of course, it is so much the better for us. What about her crew?"
"Oh! they're all aboard, sir; but they'll be tu
rned in and sound asleepby this time,--anchor watch and all, as likely as not," was the reply.
"Do you happen to know how many they muster?" asked I.
"Panza told me that he'd heard it said that her full complement was twohundred and twenty-six men, countin' officers and all. But if we canonly manage to surprise 'em, and get aboard afore the alarm's given, Idon't reckon that they'll give us so very much trouble," answered Hoard.
"We must risk that," remarked I. "And now, as you happen to be here,there is nothing to detain us; we may, therefore, as well be moving.The sooner that we get this battery business over, the better."
"Very well, sir, I'm quite ready," answered Hoard. "I suppose youdidn't happen to think of slippin' a cutlash, or a pair of pistols, oranything into the boat for me, sir?" he continued.
"Oh, yes, I did!" said I. "Thomson, the coxswain of the gig, will fityou out. And you had better come in the gig with me, as we shallprobably want you to act as pilot."
"All right, sir, I'll do that with all the pleasure in life," was theanswer. And therewith he clambered noiselessly into the boat and madehis way aft to the stern-sheets, where I presently found him with anaked cutlass in his hand, the edge of which he was testing with histhumb, and mumbling his satisfaction at its condition.
We now shoved off, and the gig leading, gave way at a long steadystroke, for the southern extremity of the island, which we reachedwithin the hour, although it was a pull of fully three miles. Arrivedat the low point, and leaving each boat in charge of a couple of men, welanded; and as I was marshalling the men upon the beach, the blacknessof the night was momentarily dispelled by a blaze of vivid lightningthat flashed from the clouds immediately overhead; and almostsimultaneously with the flash there came a crash of thunder that seemedto make the solid ground beneath our feet vibrate and tremble. This washorribly annoying; for to advance upon the battery in the midst of astorm of lightning was almost certainly to betray ourselves, while timewas now of some importance, I being anxious to be aboard the galleon notmuch later than two o'clock in the morning, that being the hour when manis supposed to sleep his soundest and to be least liable to awakeprematurely.
However, there was nothing for it but to wait, so I hurriedly orderedthe men to lie down behind the ridge of sand which formed the junctionof the beach with the grass-land; and there we crouched, with thelightning flashing and quivering all about us for fully a quarter of anhour. Then down came the rain, not in drops, but in sheets, with thelightning flashing and darting and quivering hither and thither throughit, until we appeared to be enveloped in a gigantic diamond; soexquisitely beautiful were the glancing colours of the lightning throughthe rain. Of course we were wetted to the skin in an instant, but thatdid not very greatly matter, as our pistols and ammunition were carriedin waterproof cases; moreover, the rain afforded us an excellent curtainunder cover of which to advance; so at a word from me the men sprang totheir feet, and we pushed rapidly forward. The battery was but aquarter of a mile from the spot where we had landed, and so accuratelyhad I taken my bearings that, in about five minutes after we began tomove, the structure loomed up, dark and grim, before us. Hoard hadinformed me that its landward sides were protected by a deep moat,connected with the sea, and spanned by a drawbridge; and it was for thisbridge that I was keeping a sharp look-out. I was so close aboard of itbefore I saw it that three or four paces sufficed to carry me to thesentry-box at its landward end; and just as I reached this box a vividflash of lightning revealed its interior, and there, bolt upright, stooda tall Spanish grenadier, with his musket resting in a corner of thehut, close to his hand. I realised instantly that the briefest periodof hesitation now meant our undoing; for as I had seen the soldier, hehad also undoubtedly seen me; so the man no sooner stood revealed beforeme than, with one bound, I was in the sentry-box with him, one handgrasping his throat to prevent him from crying out, while with the otherI seized his musket and passed it out to the man next behind me. Thesoldier struggled manfully, and did his utmost to free his throat, but Iheld him fast, and in so fierce a grip that ere many seconds were over Ifelt him sink powerless to the ground. To lash him, hands and feettogether, like a trussed fowl, with his own cross-belts, and to gag himwith a good-sized stone, secured in his mouth by a strip slashed fromhis own coat, was but the work of two or three minutes; and when atlength, satisfied that the fellow was secure and harmless, I emergedfrom the box, I had the satisfaction of finding that Tom Hardy,--nowacting as the schooner's second mate,--had promptly followed my exampleby securing the sentry at the far side of the drawbridge.
We were now consequently in possession of this structure, and that, too,without the slightest alarm having been given to the garrison, and inanother minute all hands of us stood inside the battery, which was afine, solid earthwork, with casemates, very like the battery that we hadseized at Abervrach harbour. Unlike the French battery, however, allthe casemates were open, with the exception of four, two of which wereconverted into the officers' quarters, while the other two constitutedthe magazine; and in the shelter of these open casemates theartillerymen were slumbering soundly in hammocks, despite the storm,with their muskets piled under the shelter of a verandah that ran allalong the front of the casemates. To possess ourselves of thesemuskets, and to heave them into the moat was the work of but a fewminutes; and when this was done I went up on to the platform, and withmy own hands effectually spiked every one of the guns. It was a mostunaccountable thing to me that the whole garrison should have slept sosoundly through the terrific crash and roar of the thunder, and theblaze of the lightning; but they did, perhaps because they wereaccustomed to that kind of disturbance; and as the thunder waspractically continuous, I had no difficulty in carrying out myoperations without a single clink of the leather-covered hammer beingaudible.
The battery was now useless for some hours at least; and, since we hadbeen so fortunate as to render it so without any of the garrisonbecoming any the wiser, I thought it would be an advantage to leave themin ignorance for a few hours longer, I therefore quietly withdrew mymen, and, taking the two gagged and bound sentinels with us, effected anorderly retreat to the beach.