hed out
of its place, leaving a long opening and easy access to the boards on
either side. "Steady there, mates; don't lose a nail. They are very
poor ones, and only rusty iron now, but just you handle them as if they
was made of gold. That's your sort. We'll just nail them boards up
across the lower parts of them windows, far enough apart for us to fire
through, and when that's done they'll make a show if they don't do
anything else. It'll satisfy the skipper; but as to keeping the bullets
out, when the beggars begin to fire, why, Mr Poole, sir, I believe I
could take half-a-dozen of them little sugar-loaf-shaped bits of lead in
my mouth and stand outside and blow them through.--What do you say,
Camel? Where's a hammer? There are dozens of them, mate, in High
Street, Liverpool, at any price from one-and-six up to two bob. Did you
leave your head aboard the schooner?"

"Did I leave my head aboard the schooner? What are you talking about?"
growled the cook.

"Thought perhaps you had left it in the galley, stood up in one of the
pots to keep it safe till you got back. Turn the axe round and use the
head of that, stoopid. Chopper-heads was invented before hammers, I
know."

"Well, you needn't be so nasty, mon," growled the cook.

"Make you nasty if you was set to cook a dinner without any fire, and no
meat."

Andy grunted and began hammering away, helped by two of his messmates,
who held the floor-boards in place while such nails as had come out of
the joists were driven in.

Satisfied with this, the carpenter set to work at the end of one of the
joists, using a sharp axe so deftly that the great wedge-like chips
began to fly, and in a minute's time he had cut right through.

"That's your sort!" he cried. "Now, lads, two on you hoist up."

The men had hold of the freshly-cut end of the stout joist in an
instant, raised it up, its length acting as a powerful lever, and it was
wrenched out of its place, to be used beneath its fellows so dexterously
that in a short time there was no longer any floor to the principal room
of the hacienda, the joists being piled up on one side, and those who
were in it stood now a couple of feet lower with the window-sills just
on a level with their chests.

"Bravo! Splendid!" cried Fitz excitedly. "Why, that gives us a capital
breastwork--bulwark, I mean--to fire over."

"Yes," cried Poole, "and plenty of stuff, Chips, for you to barricade
the doors."

"Barricade t