Directly they had the cheek to do this our port guns were trained on them—the foremost 9.2 on one, the port for’ard 9.2 on another, two of the 7.5’s on a third, and so on, with orders to fire directly the Santa Cruz ships fired. Of course these poor little things wouldn’t have stood a chance, but they kept their crews at their guns, and if they’d only been able to let off one broadside it would have swept our decks. This made it jolly interesting for all of us who were getting down the topmasts and had to work in the open. I had never thought about how Billums or the Ministers were coming off, and when at seven bells the first and second barges were called away, you can imagine how excited I was, because the second barge was mine. They lowered us into the water, planked a Maxim gun in the bows, revolvers and cutlasses were served out to the crew, and I had my dirk and revolver. The Commander bellowed down that we were to go inshore, lie off the steps at the landing-place, and wait for Billums or the Ministers. I was in white uniform with a white helmet, and it was so boilingly hot that, though the men only had on straw hats, flannels, and duck trousers, they sweated under their cutlass belts before they’d pulled half-way inshore. As we got close to the wharf it was more exciting still, because the people crowding there and the soldiers began shouting and jeering at us, shaking sticks and throwing stones—not to hit us, but to splash us. They weren’t brave enough to do any more, because they could see all the starboard twelve-pounders on board the _Hector_ trained on them. I felt jolly important, and when Blotchy Smith—the midshipman of the first barge and a pal of mine—sang out for me to ’lay on my oars,’ we bobbed up and down only about ten yards away and pretended we didn’t see them. We waited and waited; eight bells struck aboard the _Hector_, there wasn’t a sign of any one coming, and the black ruffians on the wharf became more irritating than ever. Several lumps of mud and dirt had been thrown into the boats, and one had struck my clean helmet, but I still pretended not to notice anything. It got so bad soon that Blotchy Smith sang out to me to train my Maxim on the crowd, and you would have laughed if you’d seen the brutes clearing away. Then the _Hector_ signalled across that carriages could be seen coming down the road from Santa Cruz, and after another long wait we heard the mob ashore groaning and hooting, and a lot of cavalry and several carriages came clattering and rattling along the wooden wharves. You can guess how we wondered whether it was Billums coming or only the Ministers. It wasn’t Billums, for we saw all the foreign Ministers, and knew that they would not have come with him. Some soldiers made a way for them, and then we had to pull backwards and forwards, taking them and a lot of Europeans—Mr. Macdonald among them—off to the ship, and afterwards go back for their luggage.