"Why not roll one of our boats across the neck of land, and then row down and take the cutter by surprise?"
I did not know how this plan would be received by the others, but when I finished they were looking at me eagerly.
"Captain, I admire ye!" said Dugan, with a trace of Irish in his tone.
Chips grasped my hand.
"By Solomon! we can do it, sir!" he said, and we hurried across to where the men were seated, a dejected-looking group, on the sand.
In twenty minutes the boats from the cutter were out of sight around the north shore cape, and we set to work getting the largest of our own over the barrier.
We broke the oars from the boat we had discarded into rollers, and in five minutes, or a little over, we had made a launching on the western shore.
The men muffled their oars with their shirts, and with a sensation of hunters stalking some dangerous animal, we rowed slowly along against the tide. Truly it was as if the quarry were asleep, and we feared awakening it before we got within striking distance.
Now we were right under her stern, and I read the name, Bat, in gold letters.
She was a tidy little craft, more like a gentleman's yacht than a vessel of war, and from two small ports on her sides poked the muzzles of brass six-pounders.