at, and made them so drunk at an inn in the little town that
they could not talk. Then he gave out that the brig was manned by
treasure-seekers, a gang of men whose hobby was well known in the United
States; indeed, some Spanish writer had written a history of them. The
presence of the brig among the reefs was now sufficiently explained.
The owners of the vessel, according to the self-styled boatswain's mate,
were looking for the wreck of a galleon which foundered thereabouts in
1778 with a cargo of treasure from Mexico. The people at the inn and the
authorities asked no more questions.

Armand, and the devoted friends who were helping him in his difficult
enterprise, were all from the first of the opinion that there was no
hope of rescuing or carrying off Sister Theresa by force or stratagem
from the side of the little town. Wherefore these bold spirits, with one
accord, determined to take the bull by the horns. They would make a way
to the convent at the most seemingly inaccessible point; like General
Lamarque, at the storming of Capri, they would conquer Nature. The cliff
at the end of the island, a sheer block of granite, afforded even less
hold than the rock of Capri. So it seemed at least to Montriveau, who
had taken part in that incredible exploit, while the nuns in his eyes
were much more redoubtable than Sir Hudson Lowe. To raise a hubbub over
carrying off the Duchess would cover them with confusion. They might as
well set siege to the town and convent, like pirates, and leave not a
single soul to tell of their victory. So for them their expedition wore
but two aspects. There should be a conflagration and a feat of arms
that should dismay all Europe, while the motives of the crime remained
unknown; or, on the other hand, a mysterious, aerial descent which
should persuade the nuns that the Devil himself had paid them a visit.
They had decided upon the latter course in the secret council held
before they left Paris, and subsequently everything had been done to
insure the success of an expedition which promised some real excitement
to jaded spirits weary of Paris and its pleasures.

An extremely light pirogue, made at Marseilles on a Malayan model,
enabled them to cross the reef, until the rocks rose from out of the
water. Then two cables of iron wire were fastened several feet apart
between one rock and another. These wire ropes slanted upwards and
downwards in opposite directions, so that baskets of iron wire co