Then I took the passport from his pocket and hustled off to the arsenal. I had been assiduously cultivating the officers there and was delighted to find the young lieutenant with whom I was best acquainted in charge of the guard. I told him I would have the order for the release of the rifles within an hour and proceeded to celebrate by getting him in the same state in which I had found the convenient Englishman. I sent word to Lorensen, sailing master of the “Leckwith,” to get up a full head of steam, and engaged a dozen big wagons to be at the arsenal in an hour. I arrived with the wagons, waved the gaudy passport in front of the young officer’s face, and without trying to read it he told me to go ahead. We made quick work of getting the boxed arms to the ship and under her hatches, for the guard was changed at four o’clock and my sleepy young friend would be succeeded by an officer who was sober and in his right mind. We were not quite fast enough, however, for just as we were pulling out the new officer of the guard came running down the dock, shouting that he wanted to see the order for the release of the arms. As he was well out of arm’s-reach I made a fussy effort to hand him the passport. Then I opened it out and showed it to him, all the while explaining that it was all right. He went away shaking his head and I anticipated trouble at the fort at the entrance to the harbor, at the head of the Adriatic, as the channel through which we had to run was narrow. The fort occupied a commanding position and had high walls from the water’s edge, with a free bastion high up. Sure enough, a shot whizzed across our bows as we reached the fort. Immediately I swung the ship in and before they saw I was not going to come to anchor, as they had supposed, we were so close under the walls that they could not bring their guns to bear on us. It was only a very few minutes, however, until they could reach us with their seaward guns, and they let go at us without any delay. The second shot took a bite out of the mainmast and it looked as though they had found our range and would smash us in a jiffy; but the brave little ship was tearing through the water at her top speed and, as we were going directly away from them, was hard to hit. Shells splashed uncomfortably close to us for a few minutes, but save for one shot that carried away some of the ginger-bread work on the stern we were not struck again, and were soon out of reach of anything like accurate fire. The “Leckwith” had stood her first baptism of fire in a way that augured well for her future, and the sign was a good one.