"'Pon my word, Roger, I don't know," replied Story. "As you say, there are no other English about here excepting ourselves; yet the people in possession of that craft are undoubtedly English. Ah! can it be, I wonder, that these people are English prisoners who are effecting their escape from the Spaniards to-night of all nights; and, having managed to get hold of a ship, are now clearing off? Zounds! I believe I am right, and that is what has happened. This is doubly annoying. First, because we are very short-handed ourselves, and if we could only have got those fellows to join us it would have helped us to make up our crews once more; and, secondly, because their escape will surely be discovered before long, and a search made, which will render it very awkward for us. I wish I could somehow contrive to communicate with those other two boats, and let them know; for, this having happened, it is high time for us to beat a retreat, or we shall be caught like rats in a trap! But there is no way, so we had better make the best and most of it, get what information we can, and then be off back to the rendezvous to wait for the others, and start for the ships directly they appear. Give way again, boys; but be silent for your very lives' sake." Therewith they went swiftly and silently forward again, and shortly afterward came close alongside a ship for which they had been cautiously steering. They discovered that she was a Spanish war-vessel, and her very presence there suggested a plate fleet, which she was probably destined to convoy. After pulling very cautiously round her, and ascertaining her strength, they made off toward another group of lights, and, on arrival there, found another war-ship. This craft was apparently a sister ship to the first one they had seen, and of the same strength. Having ascertained this, and seeing no more lights but such as lay in the tracks of the other two boats, they turned the bows of the boat seaward, and, finding that it was well-nigh time for them to be at their rendezvous, pulled vigorously in that direction. They had taken but a few strokes when, from somewhere behind them in the town, they heard a distant clamour, suggestive of voices calling and shouting. "Listen a moment," said Story. "Stop pulling, lads; I want to hear what that is going on behind there." The men lay on their oars, and all strained their ears, listening. Presently the sound rose from a dull murmur to one of greater volume, and a trumpet pealed out from the shore, answered almost immediately afterwards by one from each of the warships; and suddenly, from one of the batteries, a flash of fire rushed out, illuminating for a few seconds, as does a flash of lightning, the whole bay, and then came the dull report of the gun.