But then the Commander stopped the engines, and we simply drifted between the wall faces of those two forts, only standing by to shove her off if she had hit up against anything. But we were well in the middle, well in the grip of the current which was running like a millstream, swinging us round and round like a cork, and all we could do was to hold our breath and trust to being safely swept out to sea. The only noise was the bubbling of the current, till suddenly the stoker in the bottom of the boat let fly a most piercing yell which echoed from side to side. The Commander was on top of him in a moment, and must have caught him by the neck. We could see some lights moving overhead. Somebody called out, and I jumped aft to help the Commander. "Go back, Glover, and stoke; shove a little coal on at a time. I can manage him, and we shall want all our steam when we get outside." I had never done such a thing before in my life, but it wasn’t difficult to find a shovel, and I lifted the furnace door open, and by the light of the furnace saw where the coal was stored. I threw some on, as far back as I could, and shut up the door again, but already the alarm had been given. On each side of us I could hear men shouting and see lights hurrying up and down, and that one flood of light from the open door must have just showed them where we were. Sentries began letting off rifles, and the shouting redoubled. We were half-way through by this time. We began to feel the motion of the sea beneath us, and, unless they had a search-light ready, or we ran on a rock, we were almost out of danger. They _had_ not a search-light ready, and we _never_ ran into a rock, but in two minutes knew by the dancing of the steam-boat and the wall of blackness that appeared behind us that we were clear of the channel and out at sea. Suddenly the darkness was lit by vivid flashes and with horrid ear-splitting bangings—the batteries commenced firing at us from both sides of the entrance. I was horribly frightened at first, for I thought that they must be able to see us, but I was quite wrong—they were simply firing blindly. One little shell hit the water behind us, and, bursting, showed us up for a second, but nothing else came near, and in a minute or two they ceased firing. The Commander opened out the steam, and the little steam-boat jumped nimbly along, dancing about like a duck, and taking in a lot of spray over her bows as she breasted a tide rip[#]. [#] Tide rip. This is a jumbling sea caused by the wind blowing against a strong tide. We ran out of the tide rip in a short time, and then the stoker began groaning again, so we bound his legs and arms with rope so that he should not jump overboard. As we were doing this a search-light began sweeping the sea, then another from quite a different quarter, and we knew that Mr. Parker and Mr. Lang were looking for us.