men. We
will range up alongside her and lay her aboard, and just before our
sides touch we will pour our broadside into her, throw the grapnels and
hook on, and then dash aboard in the midst of the smoke and drive her
crew below. The secret is to strike hard and often, and keep them on
the run. If any man attempts to stand, though only for a moment, run
him through at once with a pike. That is all that I have to say, men;
you know how to do the trick as well as I."

With Cartagena city and the galleon in plain view, Dick Chichester's
work aloft was done, and he, therefore, returned to the deck and the
spot upon it from which he had previously been conning the ship, where
he resumed his duty as pilot.

As the _Adventure_ slid smoothly and rapidly up the harbour, heading
straight for the galleon, it was seen that nearly twenty large boats,
full of armed men, were pulling off to her from the shore. It was
clear, therefore, that the authorities had received notice of the
approach of the English, possibly from one or another of the officers in
charge of the defences on Tierra Bomba, and, shrewdly guessing that one
object, at least, of the unwelcome visit was the galleon, were
determined to defend her to the last. But this discovery in nowise
disconcerted the sturdy lads of Devon, who had long ago learned to
regard themselves as invincible, so far as the Spaniards were concerned;
so they continued with the utmost calmness to add here and there some
refinement of finish to the preparations which had been completed an
hour or more ago. Even the ship's cook, whom nobody regarded as a
fighting man, must needs add his little quota to the general
preparations, the same taking the form of several gallons of greasy
boiling water with which he had filled his coppers, the which he
proposed to employ at such time as might seem to him most suitable. As
for Dick, he decided that the handspike which he had used in the fight
off Barbados had proved so effective that, regarded as a weapon, it
could scarcely be improved upon, and he was on the point of providing
himself with another when his eye chanced to fall upon a heavy iron bar
which had been brought on deck for some purpose, so, having tested its
weight, he at once decided that it was the very thing he needed, and
appropriated it accordingly.

The _Adventure_ had arrived within about half a mile of the galleon when
the latter opened fire with her heavy ordnance, of which she