“Get them both round!” the captain shouted.  “I will row out through the entrance and give you warning if these accursed cruisers are in sight.”

The boat dashed through the narrow entrance, and at once felt the full force of the breeze.  “Dead on shore,” the captain muttered bitterly.  “They will have to work right out into the arms of one or other of them.”

They rowed a hundred yards out, when, beyond the furthermost point they could see to the east, the sails of the schooner were perceived.

“Take her round,” the captain said sharply.  “It’s too late now, we have got to fight for it.”

They rowed back through the entrance.  The schooner slowly towed by her boats was approaching.

“It is no use,” the captain said, “you are too late.  The schooner has rounded the end of the island, and with this breeze will be here in half an hour.  You never can work out in time.  Beside, they would see you come out; and even if you got away, which you couldn’t do, they would come back and capture the depot.  We have got to fight for it, that’s evident; and the boats of a fleet could hardly make their way in here.  We had best get the three craft moored with their broadsides to the entrance.  We will blow the boats to tinder if they try to come in, and then we can load up with all the most valuable goods and slip out at night-time.  That is our only chance.”

The captain of the schooner jumped into the boat, and they again rowed out into the entrance.  He saw at once that the other’s advice was the only one to be followed.  It would be impossible to beat off the shore before the schooner came up and while they were talking the frigate appeared round the other end of the island.  They therefore returned into the harbor.  The Belle Marie’s anchor was raised, and the three vessels moored head and stern across the harbor, a hundred yards from the entrance.  As soon as this was done strong parties were sent ashore from each of the vessels, and six heavy ship’s guns that had been landed from some captured vessel were dragged from their place near the storehouse and planted on the heights, so as to sweep the narrow channel.

It was late in the evening before this was finished, and an earthwork thrown up to shelter the men working the guns from musketry fire.  In the meantime the two ships of war had met outside, and again separating cruised several times from end to end of the rocky wall, evidently searching for the entrance through which the privateers they had been pursuing had so suddenly disappeared.  In the morning the French sailors were at work early, and two or three strong chains were fastened across the mouth of the passage.

“Now,” the captain of the Belle Marie said exultantly, as he regained the deck of his ship, “we are ready to give them a warm reception.  The boats of all the British cruisers on the station would never force their way through that gap.”