By the time the last of our stragglers had dragged their weary limbs into the enclosure, the shouting and firing again waxed warm in the direction of the boats; so we made all sail towards them the instant we had scrambled over the rude stockade, leaving the other wounded Spaniard, who lay in a harder part of the mud, to his fate, notwithstanding the poor fellow's heart-piercing supplication not to be left to perish in so horrible a manner as his comrade, who had just disappeared. We advanced as rapidly as we could, and presently came in sight of this new scene of action. The boats were filled with our people who had been left to guard them, but were still aground, although the flood was fast making. They had evidently made the most desperate attempts to get them afloat, and had been wading up to their waists in the mud. Four white Spaniards were blazing away at them, and at least one hundred and fifty naked negroes were crowding round the head of the creek, and firing from half-a-dozen old rusty muskets, and throwing spears made of some sort of hard wood burnt at the ends, while several were employed cutting down the mangroves and throwing them into the mud, so as to be able to pass over them like a mat, and get at the boats. One or two of the demon-like savages were _routing_ on bullocks' horns, while six or seven had already fallen wounded, and lay bellowing and struggling on the ground before the well-directed fire of our people. "Advance, Mr Sprawl, for the love of heaven," the midshipman in charge of the party in the boats sung out--"advance, or we are lost; our ammunition is almost out." Our own danger made it sufficiently evident, without this hint, that our only chance of safety was by a desperate effort to drive our opponents back into the wood, and there keep them at bay until the boats floated. "Ay, ay, my boys," cried Lanyard, "keep your fire--don't run short." "Confound you, don't fire," shouted Mr Sprawl, "or you will hit some of us," as several of the boat's crew nearest us continued, notwithstanding, to pepper away; then, to his own people--"Follow me, men; if we don't drive them into the wood, as Mr Lanyard says, till the tide makes, we are lost." "Hurrah!" shouted the brave fellows, "give them a touch of the pike and cutlass, but no firing.--Hurrah!"