we gave three English cheers. The poor little children joined,
and were so fully convinced of our being at play, that they enjoyed the
noise, and were heard clapping their hands in the silence that followed.

Our disposition was this, beginning with the rear. Mrs. Venning, holding
her daughter's child in her arms, sat on the steps of the little square
trench surrounding the silver-house, encouraging and directing those
women and children as she might have done in the happiest and easiest
time of her life. Then, there was an armed line, under Mr. Macey, across
the width of the enclosure, facing that way and having their backs
towards the gate, in order that they might watch the walls and prevent
our being taken by surprise. Then there was a space of eight or ten feet
deep, in which the spare arms were, and in which Miss Maryon and Mrs.
Fisher, their hands and dresses blackened with the spoilt gunpowder,
worked on their knees, tying such things as knives, old bayonets, and
spear-heads, to the muzzles of the useless muskets. Then, there was a
second armed line, under Sergeant Drooce, also across the width of the
enclosure, but facing to the gate. Then came the breastwork we had made,
with a zigzag way through it for me and my little party to hold good in
retreating, as long as we could, when we were driven from the gate. We
all knew that it was impossible to hold the place long, and that our only
hope was in the timely discovery of the plot by the boats, and in their
coming back.

I and my men were now thrown forward to the gate. From a spy-hole, I
could see the whole crowd of Pirates. There were Malays among them,
Dutch, Maltese, Greeks, Sambos, Negroes, and Convict Englishmen from the
West India Islands; among the last, him with the one eye and the patch
across the nose. There were some Portuguese, too, and a few Spaniards.
The captain was a Portuguese; a little man with very large ear-rings
under a very broad hat, and a great bright shawl twisted about his
shoulders. They were all strongly armed, but like a boarding party, with
pikes, swords, cutlasses, and axes. I noticed a good many pistols, but
not a gun of any kind among them. This gave me to understand that they
had considered that a continued roll of musketry might perhaps have been
heard on the mainland; also, that for the reason that fire would be seen
from the mainland they would not set the Fort in flames and roast us
alive; which was one of thei