No enemy, however, appeared; but being an experienced officer, he knew that they might be lurking at no great distance ahead, or concealed behind the brushwood either on the right hand or the left, so that they might attack him at any moment on the flank or get behind him and out off his retreat. Having advanced therefore a short distance, he ordered a halt, and getting close under a hill from the top of which he hoped to obtain a survey of the country, he climbed up it, accompanied by Desmond.
“There’s the fort, sir,” exclaimed the latter, “and I see a number of men going into it. If they have not cut off Rogers’s head, they will be taking him in with them, and he’ll run a great risk of being killed when the Gnat opens fire on the fort.”
Mr Norman thought Desmond was right in his conjectures.
“Could not we make a dash at the rear of the fort? we might get in before the pirates know we were coming,” said Desmond.
“With a stronger party I would try what we could do; but as the pirates must have been watching us, they would be prepared for an attack, and I very much doubt if we should succeed.”
Desmond, though eager to try and rescue Tom, of whose death he was as yet far from being convinced, acknowledged to himself that his lieutenant was right. They remained a few minutes longer, taking a more perfect survey of the fortress and the surrounding country.
“If I mistake not, could we land on the right side of it, we might make our way, concealed by the mass of brushwood to the rear of the fort, and get close up to it before we are discovered, while the pirates, if they expect us to make the attempt, will be looking out for us over that open ground more to the left; but we must get back and communicate with Captain Rogers,” observed the lieutenant.
Mr Norman, directly he came down from the hill, ordered his men to retreat. As soon as they were on board, the boats pulled away for the Gnat as fast as the crews could lay their backs to the oars, all knowing the importance of placing the wounded under the surgeon’s care as soon as possible. Two poor fellows required no doctoring, but their bodies were carried, nevertheless, for the purpose of giving them, as Jack called it, “decent burial?”—in reality that they might be sewn up neatly in their hammocks, with a shot at their feet, to carry them down to the oozy bed of the ocean beyond the ken of the sharks.
The Gnat had just got off, and with the musquito fleet in tow was steaming up towards the pirates’ stronghold. As Mr Norman’s three boats passed within long range of the fort, several shots were fired at them without doing any damage, nor did the pirates make chase, which they might have done with a good chance of capturing their enemies.
At last the boats got alongside the Gnat. Captain Rogers received the account Mr Norman gave him with much concern.