I had, after much thought, evolved a scheme which appeared to me so very promising that I determined to put it to the test without delay, taking care, however, not to breathe a word of my purpose to any of the officers, because I felt certain that after the late lamentable failure, no further attempts of a like kind would be permitted.
I needed assistance, however, to carry this notable scheme into effect, and I accordingly took little Bobby Summers into my confidence.
The “Mouette,” I ought to mention, had been brought round with the rest of the fleet, and was occasionally employed in communicating between the ships and the forces on shore. Bobby and I retained our former posts in her, and as she was required at all hours of the day and night, we had removed our chests and hammocks to her little cabin, merely visiting the old “Juno” at odd times, to maintain our connexion with her, when we had nothing else in particular to do.
This arrangement was most favourable to my scheme, inasmuch as it allowed of my embarking upon it unmolested, and it also rendered little Bobby’s assistance available at whatever moment I might require it.
There seemed to be only one serious difficulty in my way, and that was the want of a really good and effective disguise; and this difficulty was quite unexpectedly removed by the merest accident.
I had taken Summers into my confidence, and had received from him a prompt promise of his heartiest co-operation; the first dark night therefore which followed upon the unfolding of my purpose to my enthusiastic shipmate, we took the first steps necessary to its accomplishment.
I am, as I think I have already mentioned, an excellent swimmer, and it was upon the possession of this accomplishment that I chiefly based my hopes of success. My plan was simply to row in as near the shore as possible, accompanied by Summers, in the cockleshell of a dinghy belonging to the “Mouette,” and then quietly slip into the water and swim the remainder of the distance. The dinghy in question was so very diminutive a craft that I felt sure we might under favourable circumstances get quite close in without being discovered.
The first thing which I considered necessary, was to ascertain the set and rate of the tide, such as it was; and to do this, we started away in the dinghy one very dark night, armed with a cutlass and a brace of pistols each, and paddled leisurely in toward the shore.
We arrived in due time within about half a mile of the harbour’s mouth, and then laid upon our oars to watch the drift of a small piece of plank, painted white, which we launched overboard, keeping the boat just far enough away to prevent her influencing its course, while at the same time able to distinguish its position pretty clearly.
We had been occupied thus for nearly an hour, and had seen enough to very nearly satisfy me upon the point in question, when, at no great distance away, we heard a sound as of some one laying in an oar upon a boat’s thwart.