The failure of this attack apparently discouraged the Spaniards, and as the summer progressed they seemed to rely more upon starving the garrison out than upon a direct attack with their present means. They therefore confined themselves to a strict blockade by night and day, and devoted all their energies to making new and tremendous fortifications on the isthmus, upon which they mounted great numbers of heavy guns, provided with vast magazines of ammunition. This last was very injudicious, as it turned out. General Eliot, observing all they did, purposely let them carry the work, during the summer and autumn, to a certain point, disturbing them little; but he had a deep and far-reaching scheme in regard to this. He had determined upon a sortie, and on the evening of the 26th of November, after gun-fire and the closing of the gates for the night, the orders were given. Everything had been arranged beforehand, but only two or three officers besides General Eliot knew of the plan, as the utmost secrecy was essential.
As most of the regular garrison was necessary to remain in charge of the fortress, the attacking body of two thousand men was made up largely of the sailors and marines from the squadron in the harbor. Captain Curtis was to be in command of the left column, and Langton was one of the young officers to be under him.
The men for the sortie were to assemble without beat of the drum about three o'clock in the morning, when the moon would be gone down; but they were notified at nine o'clock the night before. There was no suspicion of anything unusual in the air until, at half-past nine o'clock that night, Captain Curtis and Langton were seen coming up the path towards the hut, and the little group assembled there knew in a moment that something unlooked for had happened.
Mrs. Curtis and Archy were sitting within the rude shelter, while outside, in the full radiance of a brilliant moon that lighted the heavens with glory, sat Dolly, wrapped up in a huge old boat-cloak of her father's, with Judkins by her. The two had been singing, and, as Judkins's bashfulness forbade him to sing in the presence of Mrs. Curtis, the two had retired, according to custom, to a nook in the rock, whence they could be heard but not seen.
"Now, Judkins," Dolly was saying, "we only have time to sing the evening hymn before I must go to bed. I always think of papa on his ship when I sing it, and wish he were here to listen to it."
"True for you, Miss Dolly," answered Judkins, gravely. "It's 'opin' I am that my honored cap'n may be with his little girl more than he is now—when them bloody Spaniards leaves off tryin' to beat us off our own ground, and goes 'ome and minds their business as they ought to."
And then their voices rose in sweetness—Judkins's rich barytone and Dolly's bird-like soprano; and they had two reverent hearers in Captain Curtis and Langton, who stopped a little distance off and listened, with bared heads, to this sweet and simple hymn.
"Why, there's papa now—and Mr. Langton too!" screamed Dolly, and, according to custom, she flew towards her father and swung around him.
Mrs. Curtis forbore to ask any questions until Dolly was gone, after a specially affectionate good-night from her father; and when she was out of the way, Captain Curtis said but one word: