"Midge, ahoy," sang out a voice from the bow of a boat, that had on the instant stuck its snout round the point below us. Before we could answer, the yawl, full of enquiring messmates, was alongside. "Hillo, Master Sprawl--hillo, Master Brail; Lanyard, my boy, what sort of an afternoon have you spent?--Slept sound, eh?--But why the devil did you keep blazing away and wasting his Majesty's powder in minute guns in this way; what _were_ you after the whole night through?" sung out old Pumpbolt, the master of the Gazelle. "Come on board, my lad," said Sprawl--"come on board, will ye, and you shall hear the whole story." They did so, and after a lengthier explanation than the reader would willingly listen to, it was determined, reinforced as we now were, that if we could make out the whereabouts of the fort that had so annoyed us, we should make a dash at it, even were we to have broken heads in prospect. As to attacking the battery in front, where there was no standing ground, it was utterly out of the question; so, as the tide was now low ebb, and the slaver nearly high and dry on the bank, although, in the hole we had dropped into, the felucca was floating quietly out of cannon-shot, we left her in charge of ten hands, and crowding the other boats, three in all (the damaged boat having been repaired, as already mentioned), dropped down with the current along shore, our whole force amounting to six-and-forty seamen and twenty marines; and keeping a bright look-out for the smallest gap in the mangroves that could afford an entrance. At length we did arrive at such an opening; it was a narrow creek, about thirty feet broad, overhung with the everlasting mangrove, which formed an arch overhead by the weaving of the thickly leaved branches together, utterly impervious to the sun's rays. I was in the sternmost boat; the next to me was commanded by the first lieutenant of the frigate, old Davie Doublepipe; and as we sculled along in the clear creek, for here it was translucent as a mountain lake, whatever the water might be in the river, our boats were touching, stem and stern. Sprawl, whose experience of the coast, and, still more, of expeditions of this kind, greatly surpassed my own, immediately asked me to shift from aft where I sat, forward to the bow of the boat; the men continuing to pole along, as there was no room for them to ply their oars. "I say, Master Brail," quoth he--as soon as we could communicate without being overheard--"supposing we do carry his position--_cui bono_, what advantageth it us? The slaves, which, when the Midge first saw the polacre, and chased him, were on board, are without question once more back into cover, and must all have been landed; so if we could even weigh the hooker, and carry her to Cape Coast, I very much fear we should be unable to condemn her." "But the honour and glory?" quoth old Dick.