Montbarts was a young man of about seven or eight-and-twenty, with manly and marked features, and a fixed and piercing eye. The expression of his face was essentially sad, mocking, and cruel: a dead pallor; spread over his face, added, were it possible, a strangeness to his whole person. Tall and powerfully built, though supple and graceful, his gestures were elegant and noble, while his speech was soft, and the terms he employed were carefully chosen. He exercised a singular fascination over those who approached him, or whom accident brought into relation with him. They felt at once repulsed and attracted by this singular man, who seemed the only one of his species on the earth, and who, without appearing to be anxious for it, imposed his will upon all, gained obedience by a sign or a frown, and who only seemed to live when he was in the thick of a fight, when fires crossed above his head, forming him an aureole of flame, when corpses were piled up around him, when blood flowed beneath his feet, and when bullets whistled in his ears, and when he rushed drunk with powder and carnage upon the deck of a Spanish ship.
Such was what was said of him by his comrades, and by those who had been struck by his singular countenance, and wished to know him: but beyond this moral and physical portrait of the man, it was impossible to obtain the slightest information as to his past life. Not one of the sailors who came with him knew the slightest episode of it, or, as was probable, refused to discover anything.
Hence, when the colonists perceived that all their questions would remain unanswered, they gave up the useless task of asking them. They accepted Montbarts for what it pleased him to be, the more so, as his, former life not only did not concern them, but also interested them very slightly.
The adventurer only remained ashore for the period strictly necessary to establish his household comfortably; then, one day, without warning anybody, he went on board his lugger with the crew he had brought with him, only leaving five or six men at St. Kitts to manage his plantation, and set sail. A month after, he returned, having in tow a richly laden Spanish vessel, with the crew hanging to the yards as before.
Montbarts went on thus for a whole year, never remaining more than two or three days ashore, then going off, and returning with a prize with its entire crew suspended from the yards.
Matters attained such a pitch, the audacity of the daring corsair was crowned with such success, that the rumour of it reached France. Then, the Dieppe adventurers, comprehending all the profit they might derive from this interloping war, fitted out vessels, and went to join the colonists of St. Kitts, for the purpose of organising a hunt of the Spaniards, and carrying it out on a grand scale.
Filibusterism was about to enter on its second phase, and become a regular association.
Montbarts had built his hatto, or principal residence, at the spot where the English afterwards formed Sandy-point battery.
It was an excellently chosen position, militarily speaking, where, in case of attack, it was easy not only to act on the defensive, but also to repulse the enemy with serious loss.
This hatto, built of trunks of trees, and covered with palm leaves, stood nearly at the extremity of a cape, whence the greater part of the island and the sea for a considerable distance on the right and left could be commanded. This cape, which was nearly precipitous, and one hundred and fifty feet high seawards, could only be reached by a narrow, rough path, intersected at regular distances by strong palisades, and wide, deep ditches, which had to be crossed on planks, that were easy to remove. Two four-pounder guns, placed in position at the head of the path guarded the approaches.