I found it. Here we were cooped
up in a small sod battery, wholly ineffectual to resist a determined
assault; with a perfect cloud of hostile natives hovering about us
apparently determined to be satisfied with nothing short of our absolute
extermination; with a dozen vindictive Spaniards on board the hulk close
at hand, doubtless as anxious as the natives to sweep us from the face
of the earth; the French boat having vanished from the scene; and--
though there was drinkable water in abundance in the river so long as we
might be able to get at it--_with only one day's provisions left_.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

THE SITUATION BECOMES DESPERATE.

"Well, Tom," said I, "what about the guns?--are they loaded?"

"Yes, sir, they is," answered Tom; "and a most fort'nate circumstance it
were that you ordered them guns to be loaded when you did, otherwise we
should have been sent sky-high by this time."

"Ah, indeed! how is that?"

"Why, you see, sir, when I was ordered to load the guns I nat'rally
looks round for the ammunition for to do it with; and though this is the
first time as I've ever found myself aboard a reg'lar genewine land-
battery, it didn't take me long for to make up my mind that if there was
any ammunition anywheres aboard the thing, it must be in one of them
there corner lockers. So I goes away and tries to open the door, which
in course I finds locked. It didn't take Ned and me mor'n a jiffy,
hows'ever, to prise off the lock; and when I looked in, there sure
enough was the powder--a goodish quantity--all made up into cartridges,
and there, too, I sees the black stump of a fuze with a red spark on the
end fizzing and smoking away--a good un. I knowed what that meant in a
second, Mr Hawkesley; so I whips out my knife, sings out to Ned to
prise open the other two doors, and cuts off the live end of the fuze at
once, and just in time. There warn't more nor an inch of it left. And
when we got the other two doors open it were just the same, sir--half a
minute more 'd ha' done for the lot of us, sir."

"But you have taken care to see that the magazines are now all right?--
that there are no more live fuzes in them?" I exclaimed in considerable
alarm.

"Ay, ay, sir; never fear for me," answered Tom with a quiet grin. "They
are safe enough now, sir; we gave 'em a good overhaul before doing
anything else, sir."

"Thank you, Tom," I replied; "you have rendered a most important
service, which, if I live