Both returned to the frigate. "Mr. Pearson's report is fully borne out, Captain Wilson. It would be a most desperate enterprise to attack with our boats. Half of them would be sunk before they got to the chains; and even if they got past them, which I doubt, there is no saying what difficulties and obstacles may be inside." "And now about the frigate, Captain Chambers." "Well, sir, that is for you to decide. I am quite ready to take the schooner in; though with the plunging power of that battery raking her fore and aft I say fairly that it would be a desperate enterprise, and if she had not sufficient way upon her to carry away the chains nothing could save her. As to the frigate, it seems to me that she would run an equal risk with the schooner, with the additional danger that there may not be water enough for her." "Well, it certainly doesn't seem to be an easy nut to crack," Captain Wilson said. "As we agreed before you started, we should not be justified in risking both our vessels in assaulting a place which is certainly extremely formidable, and where there may not be water enough for the frigate to float. Still the question remains, what is to be done? It is no use anchoring here and trying to starve them out; they may have provisions enough to last them for years, for anything we know. If the weather were to turn bad we should have to make off at once; it would never do to be caught in a hurricane with such a coast as that on our lee. I might send you to Port Royal with a letter to the admiral, asking him to send us two or three more ships; but I don't like doing that when it is a mere question of capturing two rascally privateers." "I think the admiral would be glad to send them," the younger captain said; "for these two vessels have done a tremendous lot of damage during the last year. I believe that upward of twenty ships have reported being boarded and stripped by them." "But if they came what could they do?" Captain Wilson asked. "You see we consider it is not worth the risk of throwing away two ships two force this passage, still less would it be to risk four." "That is so, no doubt," Captain Chambers agreed. "I should suggest that however many of us there may be we should all draw off and keep a watch at a distance. Of course it would be necessary to approach at night, and to lie behind the island somewhere in the daytime just as we did yesterday, for from the top of that hill they can see any distance round." "Yes, and as soon as it is dusk they will have two or three hours to get away before we can come round here. Beside, with their night-glasses from the top of the cliffs they will be sure to be able to make us out. There is only one other way that I can see of getting at them, that is to find a landing-place and attack them from on shore."