by one of the women, that, so far as
she had been able to gather from the conversation of the men, the
_Tiburon_ and her crew might be expected to arrive in the Cove at any
moment.

By the time that I and my party got back to the islet the day was well
advanced, the felucca had returned to the Cove and was now anchored
inside the islet, close to its southern shore, and the surgeon, although
still busy among the wounded pirates, had doctored up the whole of our
own wounded and made them comfortable. As might have been expected from
the peculiar character of the engagement and the enormous advantage of
position which we enjoyed, our casualties were singularly light,
consisting only of five killed and nine wounded. But in the case of the
pirates there was a very different story to tell. I had ascertained,
while ashore, that they left the settlement one hundred and fifty
strong; and now all that remained of them amounted to just thirty-seven
wounded, of whom at least one quarter would probably succumb to their
hurts. Those thirty-seven I caused to be put into the boats, as soon as
they had, been attended to, and conveyed to the settlement, where I
turned them over to the care of the women folk, who, I thought, would
probably be able to give them more attention and better nursing than we
could hope to afford. The next day, at the urgent request of several of
the women, I also caused our own wounded to be taken ashore, where,
under the supervision of the surgeon, they were taken in hand and most
tenderly cared for. The dead--both our own and as many as we could find
belonging to the pirates--were hastily sewn up in canvas, weighted, and
launched overboard from the felucca, which was taken well out to sea for
the purpose.

It was about three bells in the forenoon watch, on the fifth day after
the attack upon the islet, that two sail were sighted by the lookout,
standing in toward the Cove; and half-an-hour later I was able to
identify one of them as the infamous _Tiburon_, while the other was a
large craft, apparently British, judging by her build and the cut of her
canvas; doubtless a capture.

We had long ago made every possible preparation to give the pirate
schooner a warm reception upon her arrival, going even to the length of
surrounding our battery with a parapet and masking the latter by
covering it with sods of growing grass. We had now, therefore, nothing
to do but patiently to await the arrival of the enem