nger to wait. We had advanced about a mile up the
creek when a deep hoarse voice was heard shouting something from the
shore.

"Oars!" exclaimed Smellie; and the men ceased pulling. "What was it the
fellow said?" continued the second lieutenant, turning to me.

"Haven't the slightest idea, but it sounded like Spanish," I replied.

The hail was repeated, but we could make nothing of it. Mr Armitage,
however, who boasted a slight knowledge of Spanish, informed us--the
first cutter having by this time drifted up abreast of us--that it was a
caution to us to return at once or take the consequences.

"Oh! that's it, is it?" remarked Smellie. "Well, it seems that we are
discovered, so any further attempt at a surprise is useless. Cast the
boats adrift from each other, and we will make a dash for it. Our best
chance now is to board and carry the three craft simultaneously with a
rush--if we can. Give way, lads!"

The boats' painters were cast off; the crews with a ringing cheer
plunged their oars simultaneously into the water, and away we went at
racing speed through the dense fog along the channel.

We had scarcely pulled half a dozen strokes when the report of a musket
rang out from the bank on our starboard hand; and at the same instant a
line of tiny sparks of fire appeared on either hand through the thick
haze, rapidly increasing in size and luminosity until they stood
revealed as huge fires of dry brushwood. They were twelve in number,
six on either bank of the channel, and were spaced about three hundred
yards apart. So large were they that they rendered the fog quite
luminous; and it seemed pretty evident that they had been built and
lighted for the express purpose of illuminating the channel and
revealing our exact whereabouts. I was congratulating myself upon the
circumstance that the dense fog would to a considerable extent defeat
their purpose, when, in an instant, as though we had passed out through
a solid wall, we emerged from the fog, and there lay the three slave-
craft before us, moored with springs on their cables, boarding-nettings
triced up, and guns run out, evidently quite ready to receive us.

The three craft were moored athwart the channel in a slightly curved
line, with their bows pointing to the eastward, the brig being ahead,
the schooner next, and the brigantine the sternmost of the line. Thus
moored, their broadsides commanded the whole channel in the direction of
our advance, an