to send him below under arrest and take charge himself. The tide was flowing, it was nearly three-quarters high water, and he might well have risked touching on a shoal and borne up directly for the batteries. Captain Brown, however, did nothing of the kind. The _Asia_ for the second time headed tamely out of action, this time to remain out.[61] It was a disheartening spectacle and a bad start. The whole attack indeed was jeopardised. The _Asia_ dropped back nearly outside the bay. The boats lay on their oars just within the bay. The _Zebra_, all by herself, entirely unsupported, was some distance ahead; all the time under fire from the enemy, stormed at by round-shot and shell and grape from every gun that the French could bring to bear on her. Fortunately Commander Faulknor was not of the stamp of Captain Brown. He might well have anticipated a signal of recall and turned his little sloop away to retire out of range and wait for further orders. But he was not that sort of man. When he saw the _Asia_ go about and retreat for the first time, although he had already got so far in as to be within musket-shot of the nearest French battery, he lay-to and waited. The French were already firing at him, but not the smallest notice would he allow to be taken of the enemy's shots. The _Asia_, as he saw, headed in and came on again; after which, for the second time she turned away and stood back. Commander Faulknor knew what that meant. He saw that he had been left in the lurch. He saw now that he must expect no assistance from the _Asia_, the big ship that was to have been the mainstay of the attack. The odds against him might well have daunted the bravest man. They did not, however, daunt Robert Faulknor. He then and there determined to undertake the whole duty of tackling the French batteries and covering the boat attack single-handed, with his own little ship and her crew of one hundred men all told. It was a daring resolution, for Fort Louis was a very formidable work, mounting heavy guns and strongly held. It crowned a rocky eminence that jutted out menacingly into Fort Royal Bay. The sea face rose abruptly from the water's edge, with a wall and parapet, 15 feet high, scored with embrasures for big guns all along that side. In rear of the parapet three lofty tiers of platforms, rising one above another, with the muzzles of guns showing at all points, frowned fiercely down on all who should venture to approach in hostile guise. Fort Louis guarded the fairway into the _carenage_, or man-of-war harbour, round a bend immediately in rear of the fort, and it also covered the town and warehouses of Fort Royal proper, the civil settlement, which fringed the harbour on the farther side.