Captain Day was not ignorant of the danger of attempting this reconnoissance. About a month before, Captain L’Allemand, of the French steam-vessel _Mouette_, had done so, and failed. He not only lost his own life, but several of the sailors who accompanied him were killed. Captain Day had the sagacity to perceive that this disaster was the result of the Frenchman’s imprudence. He had taken with him some twenty of his men—a force too small to offer any effectual resistance in the event of discovery, and too numerous to be able to escape detection. It occurred to him that one man might succeed where twenty had failed; but where was that man to be found? No one could hope to succeed, unless he had the step of an Indian and the eye of a hawk. In his earlier days, Captain Day had learned to stalk the red-deer on the mountains of the North, and the acuteness of vision and stealthiness of tread he had thus acquired were now employed for the benefit of his country. It is not to be supposed that self is altogether forgotten in the hour of heroic self-devotion; promotion, the world’s applause, and Westminster Abbey are dimly present to the mind of the most unselfish of men when undertaking some daring enterprise. To secure the applause of his admiral and a step in the service may have weighed a little with Captain Day; but we are sure that the danger itself had a certain irresistible attraction to his mind. He waited anxiously for a night suitable for the attempt, and on the 19th of September he was enabled to take the bearings of the Russian gunboats from the mast-head of his ship; he was enabled at the same time to mark the exact position of the guard-houses on the spit. He then resolved to land as soon as it was dark, and to try to make his way across without being observed. Accordingly, as soon as evening set in, he put a couple of sailors in his smallest boat, and, taking a small pocket-compass, some matches, his double glasses, and revolver, he at once landed. He took the precaution to put his commission in his pocket, so that his rank might be recognised if he were taken prisoner. He landed on the beach abreast his own ship, and told the sailors to remain in the boat at a sufficient distance from land to be beyond the reach of the enemy’s fire, in the event of a surprise; they were to remain there and not to make any noise, whatever might happen, unless he hailed them to pull in.