t course we should follow in
the morning, but without arriving at any conclusion. I hoped that
we should find ourselves in a state to make an organized assault on
the brig and carry it by main force; but this idea was speedily
dashed when I came to take stock of our forces and armament. We had
but eight muskets among us; I counted more than twenty buccaneers
on the sloping deck of the brig. Though we so greatly outnumbered
them I saw that a direct assault could not succeed. From the
vantage of the deck they would have us at their mercy; and though
fifty disciplined men, even unarmed, might perhaps swarm up and
overcome them by sheer weight of numbers, I believed that the
negroes would have no stomach for so desperate an undertaking.

And my former gloom and trouble of mind descended upon me, when I
saw the tide begin to creep up again. Unless we could do something
before the flood the buccaneers would without doubt get the vessel
off, for she had not sufficient way on when she struck to run her
deep into the sand, and they had only to jettison a part of her
cargo to float her.

I walked apart with Cludde and Punchard, all three of us at our
wit's end. With only eight muskets we could not fire fast enough to
keep the deck clear of men, and our store of ammunition was scanty;
further, I doubted whether the negroes were sufficiently practised
with firearms to make good marksmen. It seemed that we should ere
long see the buccaneer vessel slipping out of our reach.

'Twas a chance act of Joe Punchard that drew me out of my
heaviness, and set my wits a-jump. We were walking along the
cliffs, and came to that gap I have before mentioned, where Cludde
and I had nearly broke our necks the night before.

"'T'ud ha' saved a deal o' trouble if that there barrel had rolled
a bit further," says Joe, and he picks up a stone and shies it out
to sea, for the mere easement of his temper. My eyes followed the
flight of the stone idly, but when it flopped into the water a
notion came to me which I was quick to impart.

"By Jupiter, Cludde," I cried, "we'll bombard 'em!"

He stared at me as though he feared my wits were astray, but when I
pointed to the innumerable stones strewing the cliff side, from
boulders of great size to nuggets no bigger than an apple, and
showed how easy 'twould be for our negroes to cast them on to the
very deck of the brig, his face changed, and I saw a light in his
eyes that reminded me of the time when h