o the boats, there to wait for me, and
then re-entered the battery. It had been arranged between the skipper
and myself that each of us should, after taking our respective
batteries, display a lantern or light of some sort, on the parapet, as a
signal to the other. And my first act, therefore, upon returning to the
battery, was to light a lantern and place it where it could be seen from
the other battery, and at the same time be shielded from the wind and
the rain. While doing this I noted with satisfaction that the captain's
signal was already displayed; so, comforted with the assurance that both
batteries were now rendered harmless, I descended to the court-yard,
and, with some difficulty, succeeded in igniting the slow match. I
waited only long enough to make quite sure that it was burning all
right, and then made a bolt of it for my life, overtaking my men just as
they reached the beach. We found the boats all right, and perfectly
safe, but the men in charge growing very uneasy, as the tide was rising
fast over the reef of rocks that sheltered the little cove in which they
were lying, and a very nasty, awkward sea was beginning to roll in,
occasioning the boat-keepers a great deal of trouble and anxiety in
their endeavours to prevent the boats being stove. "All is well that
ends well", however, the boats had thus far escaped, and we lost no time
in tumbling into them and shoving off. Just as we did so a terrific
glare lit up the sky for an instant, accompanied by a violent concussion
of the rocks upon which some of us were standing, and followed by a
deep, thunderous boom. Our battery had blown up, and presently, above
the seething roar of the sea and the moaning of the wind, we caught the
crashing sound of the falling fragments of masonry and earth, and the
thud of the heavy guns dislodged from their resting-places upon the
demolished platform.

Meanwhile the wind and the sea had both been steadily increasing until
it had grown to be what sailors expressively term "a regularly dirty
night", and we were no sooner clear of our sheltering reef of rocks than
we were struck by a comber that pretty nearly half-filled the boat that
I happened to be in, the other boat, which was astern of us, faring
little or no better. The men, however, bent to their oars with a will,
and in about ten minutes, by keeping the boats stem-on to the sea, we
forced our way out through the broken water and were enabled to head for
the