d.

"We must risk that," remarked I. "And now, as you happen to be here,
there is nothing to detain us; we may, therefore, as well be moving.
The sooner that we get this battery business over, the better."

"Very well, sir, I'm quite ready," answered Hoard. "I suppose you
didn't happen to think of slippin' a cutlash, or a pair of pistols, or
anything into the boat for me, sir?" he continued.

"Oh, yes, I did!" said I. "Thomson, the coxswain of the gig, will fit
you out. And you had better come in the gig with me, as we shall
probably want you to act as pilot."

"All right, sir, I'll do that with all the pleasure in life," was the
answer. And therewith he clambered noiselessly into the boat and made
his way aft to the stern-sheets, where I presently found him with a
naked cutlass in his hand, the edge of which he was testing with his
thumb, and mumbling his satisfaction at its condition.

We now shoved off, and the gig leading, gave way at a long steady
stroke, for the southern extremity of the island, which we reached
within the hour, although it was a pull of fully three miles. Arrived
at the low point, and leaving each boat in charge of a couple of men, we
landed; and as I was marshalling the men upon the beach, the blackness
of the night was momentarily dispelled by a blaze of vivid lightning
that flashed from the clouds immediately overhead; and almost
simultaneously with the flash there came a crash of thunder that seemed
to make the solid ground beneath our feet vibrate and tremble. This was
horribly annoying; for to advance upon the battery in the midst of a
storm of lightning was almost certainly to betray ourselves, while time
was now of some importance, I being anxious to be aboard the galleon not
much later than two o'clock in the morning, that being the hour when man
is supposed to sleep his soundest and to be least liable to awake
prematurely.

However, there was nothing for it but to wait, so I hurriedly ordered
the men to lie down behind the ridge of sand which formed the junction
of the beach with the grass-land; and there we crouched, with the
lightning flashing and quivering all about us for fully a quarter of an
hour. Then down came the rain, not in drops, but in sheets, with the
lightning flashing and darting and quivering hither and thither through
it, until we appeared to be enveloped in a gigantic diamond; so
exquisitely beautiful were the glancing colours of the lightning through
t