“There is one chance,” said Fernando.  “Perhaps we could carry the ship by the board.”

“By the board! divil a bit!” put in Terrence.  “Why they’d sink us all before we could get within a hundred yards of the plagued ship.”

Sukey, remembering that Captain Snipes, his avowed enemy, was on board the Xenophon, was eager to make the effort to carry her by the board.

“It will be a desperate undertaking,” said Lieutenant Willard.  “If we had sailors instead of riflemen it might be done very easily; but it is a desperate chance; yet we are in a desperate situation.”

“And faith ye’ll come to a desperate end, if ye thry to carry that ship by the board,” interrupted Terrence.

Fernando mustered three hundred men and, ascertaining there were boats to take them to the Xenophon, was about to give the orders to march to the water, when, suddenly, volley after volley of muskets and pistols rang out from the ship.  The Americans had passed from the works and were drawn up on the sands.  When they heard the firing at the Xenophon, they came to a halt, to guess and wonder at the cause.

It was decided to march the men by a round-about course to the promontory and embark in boats for the ship.  By doing this, they could come upon the vessel from the side opposite to the fort, and effect a more complete surprise.  Two dozen bold fishermen were entrusted to take the boats along the rocky shore to the point of embarkation.  The night was quite dark, and, the water rough, so it required great skill to accomplish this difficult feat.

Fernando and his troops had gained the neck of land reaching to the promontory, and, fearing that the enemy might have landed a force there, and that they would be drawn into an ambuscade, he halted his troops in a dense growth of wood and left them with Lieutenant Willard, while he, with Sukey, Terrence and Job, crept forward to reconnoitre.  They had almost reached the promontory, and, convinced that there was no one in ambush, were about to return to the main force, when suddenly an object presented itself to their eyes, which absolutely rooted them to the spot.  At about twenty or thirty yards distant, where but the moment before the long line of horizon terminated the view, there now stood a strange figure, which might be six and might be twelve feet in height.  It had evidently risen up out of the ground and was floating in the air, as there seemed to be nothing to connect it with the earth.  There was a body of spotless white, an obscure mass which might be a head, and two long, white, straight arms, spread apart like a cross.  This strange creature was advancing toward them.

“Oh, golly! massa, look ye dar! dat am a ghost!” whispered the darkey.

“A banshee, begorra!” said Terrence.

Fernando was impressed that the strange vision was the result of some English trickery, while Sukey, cocking his gun, declared: