ting me.

The presence of a battery on the south head of the harbour entrance
convinced me that there must also be a similar structure on the north
head. As soon, therefore, as I found myself once more aboard the
dinghy, I headed her straight across the mouth, reaching the northern
side in about twenty minutes. Half an hour's search enabled me to find
the battery which I was looking for,--which proved to be a pretty exact
counterpart of the one I had already visited,--and here again I
succeeded in spiking all four of the guns without discovery. This I
regarded as a fairly successful night's work; so, as we should have to
be stirring pretty early in the morning, I now returned to the schooner,
and, having hove her to with her head off shore, turned in and had a
good night's rest.

At daybreak on the following morning I was called by Black Peter, and
within ten minutes I was on deck. We were then some eight miles off the
land, with the schooner heading to the eastward; but we at once wore
round and bore straight away for the harbour's mouth, clearing for
action and making all our arrangements as we went.

An hour's run, with the wind well over our starboard quarter, brought us
off the mouth of the harbour, which we at once entered; and as soon as
we were fairly inside, the schooner was hove-to, and two boats were
lowered, each carrying eleven men armed to the teeth, in addition to the
officer in command. One of the boats was commanded by Christie and the
other by Lindsay; and their mission was to capture the two batteries
commanding the harbour's mouth, and blow them up before the spiked
cannon could be again rendered serviceable. I brought the telescope to
bear upon the batteries as soon as we were far enough inside the harbour
to get a sight of them, and was amused to observe that there was a
terrible commotion going on in both. Our presence had been promptly
discovered, and the first attempt to open fire upon us had resulted in
the discovery that their guns were all spiked. Of course it was by no
means an easy matter to estimate the strength of the garrisons of these
batteries, but I calculated that it would probably total up to about
thirty men to each battery; and as they would be nearly or quite all
Spaniards, I felt that the boats' crews which I had sent away would be
quite strong enough to satisfactorily account for them. Nor was I
disappointed; for although the pirates opened a brisk musketry fire upon