d got all
ready for the night attack. We were in a fever of impatience to try our
luck, and could hardly bring ourselves to wait until dark, still less
until midnight, which we decided was the earliest hour at which we could
make an attempt. So great was our excitement and impatience that we
strove to allay them by drinking raw spirits continually; and by night
we were mad with drink, the only effect of which was to turn us into a
gang of demons who would stop at nothing. It was perhaps due to the
drink--though we did not know it--that we actually took the vessel after
all; for we encountered a most stubborn resistance; and had there been
any people in the fort, they would certainly have opened fire upon us,
and we should have been killed to a man. Luckily, as it happened, for
us, there was a carnival in progress in the town that night, and nearly
every man in the place was attending it. Those who had not got leave
deserted, and went all the same, even to the last sentry; so that when
we made our attack there was not a solitary soldier in the fort.

"At length the hour came; we got our boats over noiselessly, and pulled
away toward the schooner. It was dark as the inside of a wolf's mouth,
and there was but little phosphorescence in the water. We pulled with
muffled oars, and were nearly alongside her, when someone on board must
have caught a glimpse of the faint flash as our oars dipped, for we
heard a voice giving the alarm on board in Spanish. Seemingly they did
not want us to know that they were on the alert, and reckoned on giving
us the surprise we intended for them; but we had caught the low words of
warning, and knew that they were ready for us. We laid our boats
alongside one another, and held a whispered council, as a result of
which we very slowly and cautiously pulled round to the farther side of
the vessel, and boarded her silently there, falling upon the Spaniards
in the rear. This was the saving of us, for they had lined the bulwarks
on the other side, and had we attempted to board on that side we should
never have been successful.

"The fight was fierce and grim, and, strangely enough, silent; there was
not a cry, save the groans and moans of the wounded and dying. We
struggled and fought in silence, and in the dark it was difficult to
tell friend from foe. At length, to make my long story a little
shorter, we drove them below, and, cutting the vessel's cable, made sail
for the open sea. We