e beforehand, everything went without a hitch; and when
we knocked off work for the night all four guns were landed, together
with their carriages; while, so far as we could discover, the pirates
ashore remained in absolute ignorance not only of our doings but also of
our whereabouts.

The same night, waiting until the darkness was sufficient to hide our
movements from the pirates ashore, the gunner, the boatswain, the
carpenter and I ascended to the highest point of the little islet, in
search of a suitable spot upon which to construct our projected battery,
and were fortunate enough to find it on the very summit itself. It was,
indeed, perfectly ideal for its purpose, for it commanded not only the
whole of the interior of the Cove, with the settlement ashore, but also
both entrances, and the open sea, for a space of about a mile. And it
possessed the further advantage that it needed but very little labour to
completely adapt it for our purpose. So eager was I to complete our
preparations that I would fain have set the men to work upon it that
night; but they had already done extraordinarily well in getting the
four guns landed and mounted upon their carriages; I therefore decided,
though somewhat reluctantly, to let them have a long, unbroken night's
rest; and when the next day arrived I was glad that I had been wise
enough to do so, for they came to their work fresh, and laboured with a
will. As for me, I spent the night doing sentry-go, for I fully
expected to receive a visit from the shore some time during the hours of
darkness. But nothing happened; and when at length day dawned and I was
relieved, I was inclined to believe that our efforts to conceal our
presence on the island from the pirates had been successful.

With the dawning of a new day, however, the critical period was past,
and I cared very little whether the inhabitants of the settlement did or
did not discover our whereabouts. We, therefore, got all hands to work
the moment that it was light enough to see; and by the time that the
pirates ashore began to show themselves, two of our four 68-pounders
were in place on the spot which we had chosen for our battery, and were
ready to open fire at a moment's notice. But the Cove was too small,
and the islet too close to the settlement for us to conceal our
whereabouts or our movements, when once we began to work upon the
summit, where we were in full view of every eye within a range of a
couple of mi