Time was now all important to us; for, of course, we could not tell at what moment Garcia, the arch-pirate, and his crew in the _Tiburon_, might put in an appearance upon the scene; and we had a few very important preparations to make before we could consider ourselves ready to deal with him; therefore we had no sooner let go the felucca's anchor than we lowered the only other boat that we had brought with us, and ran warps away to the shore of the islet, securing them to such rocks as were most convenient for our purpose. This done, we warped the little craft right in alongside the cliff, and made her secure; after which our next task was to carry ashore two stout hawsers which we had brought with us for the purpose, and convey them to the top of the cliff under which the felucca lay moored. Then we rigged a pair of sheers over the vessel's hatchway, and proceeded to hoist our 68-pounders out of the hold--one at a time, of course. Then, having got the first gun on deck--already prepared in Port Royal dockyard, by being encased in a stout cylindrical packing of planks--we passed the bights of our two hawsers round it, one at each end, and with all hands tailing on--except one, whom we set to watch as a sentinel--proceeded to parbuckle it up the face of the cliff. It was a stiff job, but, all our preparations having been made beforehand, everything went without a hitch; and when we knocked off work for the night all four guns were landed, together with their carriages; while, so far as we could discover, the pirates ashore remained in absolute ignorance not only of our doings but also of our whereabouts.