y means of conveyance.

Sir Peter was as much surprised as pleased when I reported to him the
amount of progress that I had made during the day.

"It is wonderful!" he exclaimed. "How in the world did you manage it?"

"Simply by sticking to the Master-Attendant, and so preventing him from
doing anything else until he had attended to my requirements," I
replied.

The Admiral laughed in enjoyment of the picture his mind conjured up of
the Master-Attendant vainly trying to shake me off.

"Poor Carline!" he remarked. "How he must have suffered before he could
bring himself to the point of setting aside all his other work to attend
to you. He is a good man, a most excellent fellow in every way; but he
has one fault--he allows himself to be too much trammelled by routine.
With him everything, irrespective of its importance, must be attended to
in its proper order; and now that you have jolted him out of his groove
it will be days before he will be able to get comfortably back into it."

I have no doubt Sir Peter was right, but I did not wait to see; all I
know is that by noon the next day I had brought the unhappy man into the
frame of mind that caused him to yield prompt attention to my
requirements, rather than waste valuable time in a fruitless endeavour
to evade them; with the result that, three days later, the felucca was
ready for the next expedition which I was to lead against the pirates.

The moment that my preparations were complete I reported to the Admiral,
and received his formal instructions to proceed to sea at once; and that
same evening we weighed and stood out of harbour with the first of the
land-breeze. We now had to make a passage to windward; and although I
hugged the southern coast of Jamaica as closely as I dared, thus
availing myself to the fullest possible extent of the land-breeze as far
as Morant Point, it was not until daybreak of the ninth day after
sailing from Port Royal that we arrived off the entrance to the Pirate
Cove. Here we were baffled for a couple of hours, waiting for the
springing up of the sea-breeze; but we caught the first breathing of it,
and took it in with us, arriving at the anchorage about one bell in the
forenoon watch.

My plan of campaign was perfectly simple. I intended to enter the Cove,
and, if the pirate schooner should happen to be in harbour, run straight
alongside her, and board before her crew should have time to clear away
their guns and bring them t