Peralta had cut loose were almost out of sight astern. I uttered an exclamation of wonder, at which Peralta laughed pleasantly. ‘Your Will-o’-the-Wisp may be fast, Señor Buccaneer,’ he said, ‘but no craft that ever came off the stocks of European ship-builders will sail with the boats which the Indians—savages we call them—can scoop with rude tools out of a single glorious tree. Do we not move like an apparition—a sea spirit? Let the Spaniards chase us in their clumsy wooden boxes, the piragua will earn her right to her name though all the navy of Old and New Spain were flashing in her wake. I call her the “Ghost;” does not she glide like one fleeting to the sepulchre at the first glimpse of the light of the morning?’ I looked at Peralta, beginning to suspect that the sudden flurry, coming after the humming wine, caused him to vapour a little—but, if it were so, he very soon came to himself. ‘Hark!’ said Disco, ‘the surf on the bar.’ ‘And see,’ added Jenipa, ‘the lights of the Pearl Fleet close to in the offing.’ ‘Forward, and look out, both of you,’ cried Peralta, sharply. ‘Keep your eyes open on either bow.’ Meantime I crouched down by the steersman on the weather-quarter. The lofty lights of the frigate were much further to sea than the squadron she guarded. Indeed, the great ship cared not for approaching too closely the many banks and spits of sand, which run out from the bar, and over which most of the smaller barks could float very well. The leading ships, however, appeared to be as close to the bar on one side as we were on the other. ‘Now,’ said Peralta, ‘grant that the stupidity of those fellows on shore will keep them from making any signal to their comrades out at sea.’ But the words were hardly out of his mouth, when the water and the sky were lit up with a mighty flash, and the loud report of a great gun—a small battery of which was planted before the fort—came rolling down the river; and immediately afterwards a straggling volley of small arms rattled all along the bank, as though the soldiers were dispersed and running down towards the sea. By this time, the white water on the bar was close ahead.