cried Captain Alphonse, when I
unfolded this scheme to him; for, sirs, I may say with pardonable pride,
it was my plan entirely. `It is good tactique to beat the retreat
sometimes in war. They retreat that they may the more easily advance!'

"Don Miguel was also of a like opinion, and so was the little
Englishman, Mr Johnson, whose snobbishness had by this time been
completely put in the shade by his manly pluck and straightforwardness;
while, as for Basseterre, the mate, and the French sailors, they
implicitly believed all that Captain Alphonse approved of must
infallibly be right!

"Our first idea was to attract your attention without letting the
Haytians see what we were up to, as, to the best of our belief, they had
no inkling of your proximity; so we were puzzling our brains how to let
you learn our need in some quiet way, when little Mr Johnson suggested
our burning a devil, composed of wet gunpowder piled up in the form of a
cone. This was accordingly done, and the `devil,' when lit, placed on
the top of the wheel-house, all the rest of those around discharging
their revolvers in rapid succession at the rascals on the forecastle to
take off their attention while the firework fizzed and flared up.

"This signal, however, sirs, did not appear to be observed by your
vessel."

"It was, though," interposed the skipper. "We thought you were burning
a blue light to let us read your name astern, but you were too far off
for that!"

"Ah! we did not know that, and the failure discouraged us," replied the
colonel. "Still, whether we were observed or not, we noticed your
steamer was lying-to, and we made up our minds to try and reach her if
possible, should we be able to get out of the _Saint Pierre_ before
those rascally blacks got wind of our scheme and tried to prevent our
leaving.

"So we set about our preparations forthwith.

"The four French sailors were ordered to prepare the boat which hung
from the stern davits and to get it ready for lowering, it being now
dark enough to conceal their movements, while Captain Alphonse and
Basseterre kept guard over the approach to the poop on our side, and Don
Miguel and the Englishman defended the other ladder leading up from the
lower deck.

"Leaving these at their respective stations, I went down into the
saloon, accompanied by Pedro Gomez, the steward, to procure some tinned
meats and biscuits, with some barricoes of water and other things to
provision the boat