I put on my jacket again, and immediately proceeded thither, and on my way I noticed a group of seamen, standing on the starboard gangway, dressed in pea jackets, under which, by the light of a lantern, carried by one of them, I could see they were all armed with pistol and cutlass. They appeared in great glee, and as they made way for me, I could hear one fellow whisper, “There goes the little beagle.” When I entered the gunroom, the first lieutenant, master, and purser, were sitting smoking and enjoying themselves over a glass of cold grog--the gunner taking the watch on deck the doctor was piping any thing but mellifluously on the double flageolet, while the Spanish priest, and aide-de-camp to the general, were playing at chess, and wrangling in bad French. I could hear Mr Treenail rumbling and stumbling in his stateroom as he accoutred himself in a jacket similar to those of the armed boat’s crew whom I had passed, and presently he stepped into the gunroom, armed also with cutlass and pistol. “Mr Cringle, get ready to go in the boat with me, and bring your arms with you.” I now knew whereabouts he was, and that my Cork friends were the quarry at which we aimed. I did as I was ordered, and we immediately pulled on shore, where, leaving two strong fellows in charge of the boat, with instructions to fire their pistols and shove off a couple of boat-lengths, should any suspicious circumstance indicating an attack take place, we separated, like a pulk of Cossacks coming to the charge, but without the hourah, with orders to meet before Pat Doolan’s door, as speedily as our legs could carry us. We had landed about a cable’s length to the right of the high precipitous bank--up which we stole in straggling parties--on which that abominable congregation of the most filthy huts ever pig grunted in is situated, called the Holy Ground. Pat Doolan’s domicile was in a little dirty lane, about the middle of the village. Presently ten strapping fellows, including the lieutenant, were before the door, each man with his stretcher in his hand. It was a very tempestuous, although moonlight night, occasionally clear, with the moonbeams at one moment sparkling brightly in the small ripples on the filthy puddles before the door, and on the gem like water-drops that hung from the eaves of the thatched roof, and lighting up the dark statue like figures of the men, and casting their long shadows strongly against the mud wall of the house; at another, a black cloud as it flew across her disk, cast every thing into deep shade, while the only noise we heard was the hoarse dashing of the distant surf, rising and falling on the fitful gusts of the breeze. We tried the door. It was fast. “Surround the house, men,” said the lieutenant, in a whisper. He rapped loudly. “Pat Doolan, my man, open the door, will ye?” No answer. “If you don’t, we shall make free to break it open, Patrick, dear.”