Part 3 (1/2)

”'No, sir, and I don't believe there is any,' says I. I know the captain said to me the first day I was on sh.o.r.e, 'It's no use your thinking of making a bolt, for there ain't no other place but this where you could get to sea-not though you had twenty boats waiting to take you off.' I expect that's why they chose it. Anyhow, there never was any watch kept up on sh.o.r.e, though. I have no doubt there was many a one who had been pressed into pirating just as I was, to save their lives, would have made off had they seen ever such a little chance of getting away.

”'Just come into the cabin with me,' says he; 'I want you to show me exactly where are these batteries, and the position of the village on sh.o.r.e.'

”The first lieutenant came too, and I drew them out a chart as well as I could, showing them the position of things, and told them that every evening a boom was floated across the entrance.

”'What sentries are there on at night?'

”'Four, sir; two close down to the water, one each side of the cove, and two in the batteries at the top. That's the watch, but besides there are six men sleep in each of the other batteries, and six in each of the batteries inside.'

”'Tell me more about the place and the life you led there,' the captain said, 'and then I shall understand the position of things better.'

”So I spun him a regular yarn about the place and the people. I told him about the captain's wife, and she being an English woman, and how she was taken, which indeed was the way of most of the women there.

”'I suppose that a good many of the men were pressed too,' the captain said.

”'I expects so, sir; but when we were together on guard or on board a s.h.i.+p I noticed we never talked of such things. It seemed to me as if every one was trying to forget the past, and I think that made them more brutal and b.l.o.o.d.y minded than they would have been. Every one was afraid of every one else guessing as he wasn't contented, and was wanting to get away, and so each carried on as bad as he could.'

”'I dare say you are right, lad; it must be a terrible position for a man to be in; but you see the law can make no distinctions. If it wasn't thoroughly understood that if a man took up the life of a pirate, whether willingly or unwillingly, he would a.s.suredly be executed if he was caught, we should have the sea swarming with pirates. Now, lad, you know how this boom was fastened; can you suggest any way that we could get over it or loosen it without giving the alarm?'

”'There is no way, sir. One end is fastened by a big chain which is fixed to a great shackle which is let into a hole in the rock and fastened in there with lead; that's the fixed end of the boom. The other end, which is swung backward and forward when the s.h.i.+ps go in port, has got a big chain too. It goes under an iron bar which is bent, and the two ends fastened in a rock. When they want to fix the boom the end of the chain is pa.s.sed under this iron loop and then fastened to some blocks and ropes worked from the battery above, and the end of the chain is drawn up tight there, so that there is no loosing the chain till that battery is taken.'

”'And you say the guns of the lower batteries at the inner point sweep the entrance?'

”'They do, sir. There are ten of them on each side, twelve pounder carronades, which are always charged, and crammed up to the muzzle with bullets and nails and bits of iron. The batteries on the top of the cliff at the entrance are the heaviest metal. They have got twenty guns in each of them. They are loaded with round shot to keep a vessel from approaching, though of course they could fire grape into any boats they saw coming in.'

”'This does not seem an easy business by any means, Mr. Earnshaw,' the captain said.

”'It does not, sir,' the lieutenant agreed in a dubisome sort of way; 'but no doubt it can be done, sir-no doubt it can be done.'

”'Yes, but how?' the captain asked. 'You will be in command of the boats, Mr. Earnshaw, and it will never do to attack such a place as that without some sort of plan.'

”'What is the boom like, my lad?' the lieutenant asked; 'is it lashed together?'

”'No, it is a solid spar,' I said. 'The entrance is not more than forty feet wide, and the boom is part of the mainmast of a big s.h.i.+p.'

”'It seems to me,' said the lieutenant, 'that the only way to get at it would be to go straight at the boom, the two lightest boats to go first. The men must get on the spar and pull the boats over, and then make a dash for the batteries; the heavy boats can follow them.'

”'It would never do, Mr. Earnshaw,' the captain said. 'You forget there are twelve guns loaded to the muzzle with grape and musketb.a.l.l.s all trained upon a point only forty feet across. Would it be possible to land just outside the boom, lad, on one or both sides, and to keep along the edge, or wade in the water to the batteries?'

”'No, sir, the rock goes straight up from the water both sides.'

”'Well, the two sentries, how do they get down to the water's edge?'

”'They are let down by rope from above, sir, and the rope is hauled up as soon as they are down.'

”'This is a deuce of a place, Mr. Earnshaw,' the captain said. 'We must do nothing hastily in this matter, or we shall only be throwing away the lives of a lot of men, and failing in our object. I was intending to sail on and not return for a week, for no doubt they will be specially vigilant for a time after seeing a large s.h.i.+p pa.s.s them. As it is, I will return tonight to the back of the island, and will there leave the cutter and my gig. You will be in charge of the cutter, and Mr. Es...o...b.. will take the gig. I shall then sail away again before daylight; for although from what the lad said there is no watch kept on that side of the island, it cannot be more than three miles across, and any of the men or women might stroll across or might from any high point in the island obtain a view that way. You will make a thorough survey of all that side. The cliffs certainly seem, so far as we could see them as we left the island, as perpendicular as they are on the side we pa.s.sed; but there may be some place easier than another-some place where, by setting our wits to work, we may make a s.h.i.+ft to climb up. Get into the island I will, if I have to blast a flight of steps up the cliff.'

”'I will do my best to find a place, sir,' the lieutenant said; 'and, if there isn't one, I will make one.'

”The lieutenant told me that I was to accompany him in the cutter, and all was got ready for the trip. Water and a week's rations of food were placed on board the boats; for in that climate there was no saying when a gale might spring up, or how long the vessel might be before she got back to pick up the boats.

”When we were fairly out of sight of the island we lay to till it got dusk, and then her head was pointed back again. There was scarce a breath of wind stirring, and the vessel went through the water so slowly that a couple of hours later the captain ordered the boats to be lowered, for he saw that if the wind didn't freshen the s.h.i.+p could not get to the island, much less get away again, before daylight. The oars were got out and off we started, and after four hours' steady rowing, the lieutenant, who was steering by compa.s.s, made out the land looming high above us. Another quarter of an hour's row and we dropped our grapnels close to the foot of the cliffs, and the men were told to get a sleep as well as they could till morning.

”As soon as it was daylight we were off again and rowed to the end of the island; for, as Mr. Earnshaw said to the third lieutenant, we had best begin at the end and do the work thoroughly. When we got to the point we turned and rowed back, keeping about two hundred yards from the cliff, so that we could see well up. They were about a hundred feet high-sometimes a little less, sometimes a good bit more, and they went as straight up from the water's edge as the cliffs at Dover, only there weren't no beach. It was deep water right up to the foot.

”We went along very slowly, the men only just dipping their oars into the water, and all of us watching every foot of the cliffs. Sometimes we would stop altogether while the officers talked over the possibility of any one climbing up at some place where the water trickling down from the top had eaten away the face a little; but not a goat in the world could have climbed up them, not to say men. So we kept on till we got to the other end of the island, which must have been five miles long. Not a place could we see.

”'Unless we are going to do as the captain said-blast steps up the face of that rock-I don't believe it's to be done,' Lieutenant Earnshaw said to Mr. Es...o...b... 'Well, there's nothing to do, lads, but to row in and drop your grapnels again and wait till we see the s.h.i.+p's lights tonight.'

”Although we rowed in to within an oar's length of the cliff, there was eight fathoms of water when we dropped the grapnels. We had been lying there an hour when the third lieutenant said: ”'I should think, Mr. Earnshaw, that if we were to bring the pinnace with that four pounder gun in the bow and up end it, and with a small charge fire a ball with a rope fastened to it up into that clump of trees we saw just about the middle of the island, it might get caught.'

”'So it might, Es...o...b.., and the idea is a good one; but I doubt whether there's a man on board s.h.i.+p could climb a rope swinging like that against the face of those cliffs.'

”'He might if we used a knotted rope,' Mr. Es...o...b.. said.

”'I wouldn't mind making a try, yer honor,' one of the sailors said, and half a dozen others volunteered their readiness to make the attempt.

”'I will put it to the captain,' Mr. Earnshaw said; 'if he agrees, as you were the first to volunteer, Jones, you shall have the chance.'

”The day was dead calm, so was the night that followed it; and although we rowed back to the end of the island from which we had come, no lights were to be seen that night.

”The next day pa.s.sed slowly. The sun was hot; but toward evening the lieutenant gave permission for the men to bathe; but warned us that no man must go far from the boats, because there might be sharks about. However, we didn't see none, and we enjoyed the dip, and were in better humor still when we found that a light breeze was springing up. It might have been about midnight when the men on watch made out a light to seaward, and we weren't long in getting up our grapnels and sitting our oars. In half an hour we were on board, and were soon sailing away from the island again.

”The next night in we came again, and I saw that the third lieutenant's plan was going to be adopted; in fact, I guessed so before; for the sail makers had been at work with two light ropes making a rope ladder, and the s.h.i.+p's smith had got some empty sh.e.l.ls on deck, and had made a s.h.i.+ft to screw some iron eyes into them for fixing ropes to. The gun was taken out of the pinnace and a little mortar fixed in her, and half a dozen ropes, each a hundred fathoms long, had knots put in them every two feet.

”The launch and the two cutters were lowered as well as the pinnace this time, and the crews were armed with cutla.s.s and pistol. I went with them as before, as I should be wanted to guide them when they got near the village. It was a bright starlight night without haze, so that when we got close we could make out the outline of the cliffs, and could see the thick wood growing on the top. When we got within about a hundred yards of the cliffs the boat stopped rowing.

”'Don't use more powder than you can help, gunner,' Mr. Earnshaw said. 'In the first place, we don't want to do more than carry out the rope to its full length; in the next place, we don't want to make more noise than we can help. What wind there is is fortunately blowing seaward, and being so close under the cliff the sound will be echoed back. At the same time the less noise the better.'

”'I will begin with very little, sir. If the ball don't go to the top of the cliff I shall put a trifle more into the gun next time; it's better to make a mistake on the right side.'

”A small quant.i.ty of powder was put in the mortar, which was only a four inch one. Then a wad was put in, and a sh.e.l.l with one of the knotted ropes fastened to it dropped in the top. The rope had been coiled in a tub so as to run out easily. The gunner applied the match. There was a dull report, and every man held his breath to listen. There was a thud high up on the cliff and then a splash.

”'A few feet short of the top, I should say, gunner. You must put in more next time, for the sh.e.l.l must go well up over the trees and drop among them; otherwise it won't catch.'

”The gunner by the light of the lantern measured out half as much powder again as he had used before, and then fired. This time we heard no sound till there was a faint splash in the water.

”'The rope's gone, sir,' the gunner said, looking into the tub. 'There was a little too much this time.'

”'I don't think so,' Mr. Es...o...b.. said. 'I think that splash was the end of the rope touching the water. In that case it will be just right, a hundred feet up the cliffs, and five hundred feet among the trees. No fear of the rope coming back to us.'

”It took us a quarter of an hour's search in the dark to find the rope; but at last we came upon it, and sure enough there was only four or five fathoms in the water.

”'Now, Jones,' Mr. Earnshaw said, 'it's your turn. Put that light line over your shoulders, and when you get to the top haul on it till you get up the rope ladder, and fasten that to a stout trunk and give a low hail. We will hold the rope as steady as we can below while you mount.'