e ain't no other place but this where you could
get to sea--not though you had twenty boats waiting to take you off.' I
expect that's why they chose it. Anyhow, there never was any watch kept
up on shore, though. I have no doubt there was many a one who had been
pressed into pirating just as I was, to save their lives, would have
made off had they seen ever such a little chance of getting away.

"'Just come into the cabin with me,' says he; 'I want you to show me
exactly where are these batteries, and the position of the village on
shore.'

"The first lieutenant came too, and I drew them out a chart as well as
I could, showing them the position of things, and told them that every
evening a boom was floated across the entrance.

"'What sentries are there on at night?'

"'Four, sir; two close down to the water, one each side of the cove, and
two in the batteries at the top. That's the watch, but besides there
are six men sleep in each of the other batteries, and six in each of the
batteries inside.'

"'Tell me more about the place and the life you led there,' the captain
said, 'and then I shall understand the position of things better.'

"So I spun him a regular yarn about the place and the people. I told him
about the captain's wife, and she being an English woman, and how she
was taken, which indeed was the way of most of the women there.

"'I suppose that a good many of the men were pressed too,' the captain
said.

"'I expects so, sir; but when we were together on guard or on board a
ship I noticed we never talked of such things. It seemed to me as if
every one was trying to forget the past, and I think that made them more
brutal and bloody minded than they would have been. Every one was afraid
of every one else guessing as he wasn't contented, and was wanting to
get away, and so each carried on as bad as he could.'

"'I dare say you are right, lad; it must be a terrible position for a
man to be in; but you see the law can make no distinctions. If it
wasn't thoroughly understood that if a man took up the life of a pirate,
whether willingly or unwillingly, he would assuredly be executed if he
was caught, we should have the sea swarming with pirates. Now, lad, you
know how this boom was fastened; can you suggest any way that we could
get over it or loosen it without giving the alarm?'

"'There is no way, sir. One end is fastened by a big chain which is
fixed to a great shackle which is let into a hole in the r