I have elsewhere told you that we carried three boats--a little one, which we termed a jolly-boat, stowed in a big one amidships, and abreast of these boats lay a third boat in chocks. This boat, whose capacity rose to a lading of from twenty to five-and-twenty people, we termed the cutter. Tackles were swiftly carried aloft. While this was being done the fellows who were to man her armed themselves with cutlasses and pistols. The boat was then swayed over the side, six men and myself entered her, and we headed for the island. We gained the entrance of the natural harbor, and I bid the men pause on their oars while I looked and considered. I gave no attention to the singular aspect of the island, nor to the wondrous revelation of the ship in the vast cave. I could think of nothing but the three people on the beach. Were they decoys, as Greaves had suggested? Was there a crowd of formidable ruffians somewhere in hiding, close at hand but ready for a rush when the moment should arrive? I gazed carefully around, but saw nothing resembling a boat. We might be quite sure that there was no vessel in the neighborhood; the island was small, we had sailed half round it before heaving to. It was impossible to imagine that any craft with masts could be lying off the north side of the island without our having caught sight of her as we approached. But then it might matter nothing that no vessel should be in sight. Likely as not the ship in the cave had been discovered and explored, in which case the discoverer had acted as Greaves had--sailed away for a port to re-embark in a properly equipped expedition; a number of men had been thrown ashore to work at the caverned Spaniard, while the vessel to which they belonged to went away to put the horizon betwixt her and the rock, lest, by hovering and lingering close to, she should invite the attention of anything that passed. These were my thoughts as I stood up in the stern sheets staring around. But the woman? Truly, methought, had Greaves conjectured that fellows engaged on such an errand as this of clearing the Spaniard’s hold, would not burden themselves with a woman ashore, at all events. No noise came from the island. A low note of the thunder of the surf hummed from the north side, a great number of sea birds were wheeling about in the air over that northern part at too great distance for their cries to reach us. “Give way,” said I.