And our ears hadn't lost the noise of it before a man
put his head over the cliff above and spoke to us very politely in
Corsican.
"He seemed to be asking the way down; for Sir John pointed to the way
we had come. Whereby he laughed and shook his head. And a dozen
others that had gathered beside him looked down too and laughed and
waved their hands to us. By-and-by they went off, still waving, to
look for a better way down: but they took a good twenty minutes to
reach us, and before this the gunboat had drifted close upon the
rocks and no hope for it but to surrender to the party marching along
the beach and now close at hand.
"Well, sirs, the upshot was that this party, which had marched out
for a forlorn hope, took the gunboat and her crew as easily as a man
gathers mushrooms. And the rest of the boats, dispirited belike,
sheered off after another hour's banging and left the roadstead in
peace. But, while this was happening, the party on the cliffs had
worked their way down to our rock by a sheep-track on the western
side, and the first man to salute us was the man who had first spoken
to us from the top of the cliff: and this, let me tell you, was no
less a person than the General himself.
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