Here he made the men lie on their oars, and now he could see the whole of the harbour, the smoking wreck of the cruiser at the foot of the cliffs on his right, the little town on the other side of the harbour, and the cruisers beyond it, hugging the shore and mixed up in confusion with the anchored merchant ships. The cruisers were evidently not showing fight, that was as plain as a "pike-staff", but the sharp bursts of rifle firing that the wind brought down from One Gun Hill told him that Cummins was still being severely pressed. He knew from Midshipman Glover’s hurried report that the little party was much reduced in numbers and must be running short of ammunition, and, as far as he could judge, the attack on the forts had not reduced the danger of the Commander’s position. In fact, the inference was that he might have driven out the garrison of those forts only to reinforce the crowds of infuriated Chinese, who would now make one more determined effort to overwhelm the gallant little cluster of men who had so desperately held on to that hilltop since daylight. Fortunately the sudden necessity for immediate action, the prompt resolve to bombard the forts as the only means of relieving the pressure on the Commander’s party, and the celerity with which the reduction of those forts had been carried out, bore him along on a wave of fortune which seemed to sweep away his recent indecision and vacillation. He abruptly determined to take a step still more decisive. The risks of the project almost appalled him; but the necessity for instant action was so vividly apparent, that though he momentarily hesitated before irrevocably committing his little squadron, the continuous rattle of musketry from the hill above decided him upon one final resolution. There might be more guns hidden on the high land all round him. The cruisers might still oppose him valiantly, and there was but one hour of daylight remaining, yet he determined to make this last effort for entire success. "Get back to the _Laird_ as fast as you can," he said to Toddles, the midshipman of the boat, who had been looking with wonder at the change which had come over him. "Back starboard; give way port. Pull, men, for your lives;" and with bending oars they drove the boat out to sea again, out between the destroyers, and splashed through the heavy seas. With their boat half-full of water, they pulled under the lee of the _Laird_, hooked on their boat’s falls, and were hoisted up with a run. "Belay those fifty men," Captain Helston told the First Lieutenant, who hurried up to receive him as he scrambled down on deck, "and go to quarters again. I’m going to take the whole squadron inside." "Oh!" whistled the First Lieutenant, and rushed off.