t to himself; "the rascals! I'll humour them
in it, however; it will certainly afford me a better chance of escape."

During this time a number of blacks were pouring into the fort, carrying
all sorts of arms, most of them matchlocks of very antique construction,
though some were muskets which had probably not long before left the
workshops of Birmingham. Jack, hoping that he had thrown his captors a
little off their guard, shouldered his rammer, and walked about to try
and obtain a more perfect notion of the state of affairs. Looking
through the stockades, he saw that the fort commanded entirely the reach
of the river, at the extreme upper end of which it was situated. The
stream there made a sudden bend, nearly doubling back on itself; and as
the fort was placed almost on this point, the guns in it could fire
point-blank right down the stream. No boats had yet appeared, but from
the look of intense eagerness exhibited on the countenances of all the
blacks, he had no doubt that they were near at hand. The whole fort was
in a great state of bustle, if not of confusion. The black warriors
were running about here and there, chattering away to each other, and
examining not only their own arms, but those of everybody else. Some of
them Jack saw squinting down the barrels of their companions' muskets,
to try and ascertain the cause, apparently, of their not going off,
while the man at the other end would snap the lock without giving the
slightest warning. One of them after this came up to Jack, and, by
signs and a few words of English, requested him politely to look into
the muzzle of his musket and ascertain why it would not "fire! bang!" as
he expressed it, intimating that he had already put in several charges.

Jack declined that mode of proceeding, but begged to look at the other
end. Jack burst into a fit of laughter. "The reason, _amigo_, is this
_intendez ustedes_," he answered, as soon as he could find breath to
speak. "There's no flint to your lock, and if there had been, the
touch-hole is well stopped up with rust, so you had two very secure
preventives against its going off. I only hope that the rest of you
have arms of a like character. Not much fear for my friends then." He
picked out the touch-hole, however, for the negro, telling him that he
must put a match into the pan when he wanted to fire it. He resolved,
however, to stand clear of the negro when he fired it; for he had little
doubt that w