ed 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 cutlass, 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 masses 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 broug