kept banging away in return. Jack heard a cry close to him. It came from the boat next to his. He saw an officer fall. His heart sank; he thought it was Murray. He sprang into the boat to lift him up--but no-- it was another gallant young midshipman, whom he had seen an instant before bravely cheering on his men. Assistance was useless, he had ceased to breathe. He placed him in the stern-sheets of his boat and regained his own. Once more a desperate assault was made on the stockades, but without effect, and, with numbers wounded, the boats were compelled to haul off. What to do with the steamer on shore was now the question. It was resolved, to avoid the necessity of blowing her up, to land with a strong force to destroy the guns annoying her. Till the tide rose there seemed no prospect of getting her off. Some little time was expended in arranging the expedition. Again the signal was given, and in line they pulled gallantly up towards the stockade. As they approached a fire from fully 1,500 muskets opened on them, to which they replied with spherical, grape, and canister shot. Hotter and hotter grew the fire of the blacks, but on the boats steadily advanced till their stems touched the beach, when the men, springing on shore, formed in an instant, and, led by their officers, rushed up to the stockades. Axes were plied vigorously--some seized the timbers and hauled them down, and a breach being made, in they rushed and drove the enemy before them. The fort was gained, the blacks fled out of it into the thick bush in the rear, and all the guns were spiked. While this work was being accomplished, a party of the blacks had come down and, attacking one of the boats, had carried her off along the beach, hoping probably to make their escape in her. A party pursued them on discovering this for a considerable distance, when the blacks who had fled into the woods, seeing what was taking place, rushed from their concealment in the woods by swarms, and poured a crushing fire into the boats at pistol range. One poor fellow, who had been left on board the boat, when he saw the enemy coming, made a desperate attempt to spike her guns, and was cut down while so engaged. After all the boat could not be recovered. The Krooman on board Mr Beecroft's boat by mistake let go her anchor directly in front of the enemy's lines, and had not an officer, in the most gallant way, cut her chain cable with a chisel, under a fearfully hot fire, during which he was several times hit, she also would have been destroyed. Everybody during the action behaved admirably, and no one deserved more praise than did the surgeons sent on the expedition, who, throughout the day, attended on the wounded, exposed to the hottest fire. Disastrous in one respect had indeed been the result of the expedition, for upwards of sixty men and officers had been wounded, and thirteen men and three midshipmen killed. When it was found that the boat could not be