There was nothing for it but to place them in position ourselves, which I did, Cludde and Joe assisting (the latter with some roughness of handling and of speech), and we marked out a line for them beyond which we forbade them to advance.  Then, all being ready I gave the word.  Instantly some three score stones, none less than a pound in weight, hurtled down, many of them falling on to the sand, a dozen, maybe, finding the deck, and two or three striking the buccaneers.

There was a roar from below, which the negroes answered with a wild whoop, and then a dozen muskets flashed, and the slugs whistled over our heads or embedded themselves in the cliff.  Another shower of stones fell, a greater proportion this time hitting the mark, which filled the simple negroes with such joy that they pressed forward in full view from the ship, many of them exposing the whole upper half of their bodies.

What ensued taught them a lesson.  A second fusillade burst from the vessel; two of the negroes fell with howls of pain; the rest scurried back in dismay, and some few took to their heels and fled squealing into the woods.  I called them back and rated them soundly for disobeying orders, and then we placed them again in a secure position and the bombardment recommenced.

I reckoned that within a minute or two five hundred stones had been hurled from the cliff, and though many more fell upon the sand than upon the deck I saw that the effect was answering my hopes.  Some of the crew retreated to the lee side of the masts; others crouched under the guns, whence they fired their muskets, slowly and with difficulty, doing us no harm; others again took refuge by the break of the poop, and in the round house and the forecastle.

One man with great boldness tried to climb the rigging to the cross-trees, no doubt with intent to get a better aim.  But he instantly became the target for a perfect hurricane of stones, and he dropped to the deck and crawled painfully away.  In a few minutes not a man was to be seen.

Bidding the negroes continue to throw, but not so rapidly, I lay down on the cliff top and took a good look at the vessel.  So far as I could discover, no one was so posted as to be able to see below the level of the deck and I deemed that the time had come to attempt the second and more hazardous part of my plan.  Leaving Uncle Moses to superintend the activities of the main body of negroes, I crept down the gap with Cludde, Punchard and a score of the men who possessed arms of a sort, and came (not without some perilous stumbles) to the sea line, immediately opposite to the bow of the brig.  Then those of us who had muskets lit our matches, and I set forward across the sand, bending almost double, and making straight for the figurehead, the others close behind me in single file.  Stones were still falling from the cliff, and I was in fear, as we approached the vessel, lest some of the negroes should be hit and betray us with a cry.  But we arrived beneath the bow without this mishap and undiscovered, and crept round to the larboard side, where we were sheltered by the intervening hull.