the
walls. There was a terrific outcry and jabber among the astonished
Frenchmen for a minute or two, with some show of a disposition to
resist; but I pointed out to them that there were only thirty of them to
twenty-six of us, that we were armed while they were not, and that we
were not in the humour to put up with any nonsense whatever; which, with
the resolute attitude of our men, had the effect of very speedily
reducing them to subjection.

I had brought a hammer and a handful of nails with me, and my next
business was to spike the guns. This occupied but a very few minutes,
and when it was done I returned to the guard-room with the intention of
withdrawing my men. As I glanced round the room, however, I caught
sight of a small bunch of keys hanging against the wall, and, thinking
that these might possibly belong to the magazine, the spirit of mischief
suggested to me the propriety of destroying the battery altogether,
instead of merely temporarily disabling it; so I took down the keys,
and, lighting another lantern, of which there were several, I proceeded
to investigate.

It was as I had anticipated. The keys were those of the magazine and
the store-room, and, entering the former, I soon found that there was an
ample stock of powder, in kegs and made up into cartridges, to wreck the
entire structure. There was also a coil of slow match, a piece of which
I cut off, and, taking it outside, lighted it for the purpose of
ascertaining the rate at which it burnt. This was soon done, whereupon
I cut off enough to burn for about twenty minutes, opened the kegs of
powder, and emptying one of them in a heap in the middle of the floor,
buried one end of the slow match in the pile, taking the other end
outside. I then returned to the guard-room and marched the prisoners,
surrounded by my own men, outside the battery, when, having assured
myself that all hands were safe, I informed the Frenchmen that I was
about to blow up the battery, and recommended them to run for their
lives, at the same time directing my own men to let them go. The
Frenchmen needed no second bidding. Away they went down the slope like
startled deer, tumbling over each other in their anxiety to escape from
the effects of the anticipated explosion, to the great delight and
amusement of our people, and in less than a minute they had vanished in
the darkness. The Frenchmen thus disposed of, I ordered my own men to
make the best of their way down t