Hamilton himself led, standing up in his pinnace, with his night-glass fixed on the doomed ship, and the boats followed with stern almost touching stern, and a rope passed from each boat to the one behind. Can a more impressive picture of human daring be imagined than these six boats pulling silently ever the black waters and through the black night to fling themselves, under the fire of two hundred guns, on a foe four times more numerous than themselves! The boats had stolen to within less than a mile of the _Hermione_, when a Spanish challenge rang out of the darkness before them. Two Spanish gunboats were on guard within the harbour, and they at once opened fire on the chain of boats gliding mysteriously through the gloom. There was no longer any possibility of surprise, and Hamilton instantly threw off the rope that connected him with the next boat and shouted to his men to pull. The men, with a loud "Hurrah!" dashed their oars into the water, and the boats leaped forward towards the _Hermione_. But Hamilton's boats--two of them commanded by midshipmen--could not find themselves so close to a couple of Spanish gunboats without "going" for them. Two of the six boats swung aside and dashed at the gunboats; only three followed Hamilton at the utmost speed towards the _Hermione_. That ship, meanwhile, was awake. Lights flashed from every port; a clamour of voices broke on the quiet of the night; the sound of the drum rolled along the decks, the men ran to quarters. Hamilton, in the pinnace, dashed past the bows of the _Hermione_ to reach his station, but a rope, stretched from the _Hermione_ to her anchor-buoy, caught the rudder of the pinnace and stopped her in full course, the coxswain reporting the boat "aground." The pinnace had swung round till her starboard oars touched the bend of the _Hermione_, and Hamilton gave the word to "board." Hamilton himself led, and swung himself up till his feet rested on the anchor hanging from the _Hermione's_ cat-head. It was covered with mud, having been weighed that day, and his feet slipping off it, Hamilton hung by the lanyard of the _Hermione's_ foreshroud. The crew of the pinnace meanwhile climbing with the agility of cats and the eagerness of boys, had tumbled over their own captain's shoulders as well as the bulwarks of the _Hermione_, and were on that vessel's forecastle, where Hamilton in another moment joined them. Here were sixteen men on board a vessel with a hostile crew four hundred strong.