e
wad.

"Honour bright?" said Bags, preparing to depart.

"Honour bright," returned Bill; and Bags disappeared.

Nevertheless he did not feel sufficient confidence in the brightness of
his confederate's integrity to justify his quitting the place and
leaving him to his own devices. He thought Bill might perhaps avail
himself of his absence to remove the treasure, or be guilty of some
other treachery. He therefore crept back again softly, till he got
behind a crag from whence he had a full view of the battery.

For some time Bill walked sternly to and fro on his post. Bags observed,
however, that he always included the gun where the deposit lay in his
perambulations, which became shorter and shorter. At last he halted
close to it, laid down his musket against the parapet, and, approaching
the muzzle of the gun, took out the wad.

At this moment a neighbouring sentry gave an alarm. The guard turned
out, and Bill, hastily replacing the wad, resumed his arms and looked
about for the cause of the alarm. About a mile out in the bay several
red sparks were visible. As he looked there were a corresponding number
of flashes, and then a whistling of shot high overhead told that the
guns from which they had been discharged had been laid too high. The
Spanish gunboats were attacking the south.

The drums beat to arms, and in a few minutes the battery was manned with
artillerymen. To the inconceivable horror of Bags and Bill, the whole
of the guns in the battery were altered in position, and a gunner took
post at the rear of each with a lighted portfire. Then a flushed face
might be seen, by the blue light of the portfires, rising from behind a
neighbouring piece of rock, the eyes staring, the mouth open in agonised
expectation.

"Number one--fire!" said the officer in command, to the gunner in rear
of the gun in which Mr Bags had invested his capital.

"No, no!" shouted Bags, rising wildly from behind the rock.

The portfire touched the vent--there was a discharge that seemed to rend
Mr Bags' heartstrings and blow off the roof of his skull--and the clever
speculation on which he had counted for making his fortune ended, like
many others, in smoke. He gazed for a moment out in the direction of the
flash, as if he expected to see the watches and rings gleaming in the
air; then he turned and disappeared in the darkness.

After a few ineffectual discharges, the Spaniards seemed to become aware
of the badness of their aim, a