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undertaking, and all expressed a readiness to make the venture.
In order to resist boarding parties, in case of being disabled, the sailors were well armed, and pistols, cutlasses, muskets, boarding-pikes, and hand-grenades were within reach.
Hose was attached to the boilers for throwing scalding water over any who might attempt to board.
If it should be found impossible to save the vessel, it was designed to sink rather than burn her. During the afternoon there was a promise of a clear, moonlight night,
and it was determined to wait until the moon was down, and then to make the attempt, whatever the chances.
Having gone so far, we could not abandon the project without an effect on the men almost as bad as failure.
At 10 o'clock the moon had gone down, and the sky, the earth, and the river were alike hidden in the black shadow of a thunder-storm, which had now spread itself over all the heavens.
As the time seemed favorable, I ordered the
first master to cast off. Dark clouds now rose rapidly over us and enveloped us in almost total darkness, except when the sky was lighted up by the welcome flashes of vivid lightning, to show us the perilous way we were to take.
Now and then the dim outline of the landscape could be seen, and the forest bending under the roaring storm that came rushing up the river.
With our bow pointing to the island, we passed the lowest point of land without being observed, it appears, by the enemy.
All speed was given to the vessel to drive her through the tempest.
The flashes of lightning continued with frightful brilliancy, and “almost every second,” wrote a correspondent, “every brace, post, and outline could be seen with startling ”
