“Gill Davis, load her fresh with a couple of slugs, against a chance of showing how good she is.”

So, I had discharged the gun over the sea, and had loaded her, according to orders, and there it had lain at the Captain’s feet, convenient to the Captain’s hand.

The last day but one of our journey was an uncommonly hot day.  We started very early; but, there was no cool air on the sea as the day got on, and by noon the heat was really hard to bear, considering that there were women and children to bear it.  Now, we happened to open, just at that time, a very pleasant little cove or bay, where there was a deep shade from a great growth of trees.  Now, the Captain, therefore, made the signal to the other boats to follow him in and lie by a while.

The men who were off duty went ashore, and lay down, but were ordered, for caution’s sake, not to stray, and to keep within view.  The others rested on their oars, and dozed.  Awnings had been made of one thing and another, in all the boats, and the passengers found it cooler to be under them in the shade, when there was room enough, than to be in the thick woods.  So, the passengers were all afloat, and mostly sleeping.  I kept my post behind Miss Maryon, and she was on Captain Carton’s right in the boat, and Mrs. Fisher sat on her right again.  The Captain had Mrs. Fisher’s daughter on his knee.  He and the two ladies were talking about the Pirates, and were talking softly; partly, because people do talk softly under such indolent circumstances, and partly because the little girl had gone off asleep.

I think I have before given it out for my Lady to write down, that Captain Carton had a fine bright eye of his own.  All at once, he darted me a side look, as much as to say, “Steady—­don’t take on—­I see something!”—­and gave the child into her mother’s arms.  That eye of his was so easy to understand, that I obeyed it by not so much as looking either to the right or to the left out of a corner of my own, or changing my attitude the least trifle.  The Captain went on talking in the same mild and easy way; but began—­with his arms resting across his knees, and his head a little hanging forward, as if the heat were rather too much for him—­began to play with the Spanish gun.

“They had laid their plans, you see,” says the Captain, taking up the Spanish gun across his knees, and looking, lazily, at the inlaying on the stock, “with a great deal of art; and the corrupt or blundering local authorities were so easily deceived;” he ran his left hand idly along the barrel, but I saw, with my breath held, that he covered the action of cocking the gun with his right—­“so easily deceived, that they summoned us out to come into the trap.  But my intention as to future operations—­” In a flash the Spanish gun was at his bright eye, and he fired.

All started up; innumerable echoes repeated the sound of the discharge; a cloud of bright-coloured birds flew out of the woods screaming; a handful of leaves were scattered in the place where the shot had struck; a crackling of branches was heard; and some lithe but heavy creature sprang into the air, and fell forward, head down, over the muddy bank.