Page:The crater; or, Vulcan's peak.djvu/323

OR, VULCAN S PEAK. 83 and thirsting for blood. Betts was enabled, notwithstand ing, to enter the gate, which he did without delay, per fectly satisfied that all efforts of his to resist the torrent without must be vain. As soon as his party had entered, the gate was closed, and Betts was at liberty to bestow all his care on the defence of the crater. The great extent of the citadel, which contained an area of not less than a hundred acres, it will be remembered, rendered its garrison very insufficient for a siege. It is probable that no one there would have thought of defend ing it, but for the certainty of powerful support being at hand. This certainty encouraged the garrison, rendering their exertions more ready and cheerful. Betts divided his men into parties of two, scattering them along the Summit, with orders to be vigilant, and to support each other. It was well known that a man could not enter from without unless by the gate, or aided by ladders, or some other mechanical invention. The time necessary to pro vide the last would bring broad daylight, and enable the colonists to march such a force to the menaced point, as would be pretty certain to prove sufficient to resist the assailants. The gate itself was commanded by a carronade, and was watched by a guard. Great was the disappointment of Waally when he ascer tained, by personal examination, that the Summit could not be scaled, even by the most active of his party, without recourse to assistance, by means of artificial contrivances. He had the sagacity to collect all his men immediately be neath the natural walls, where they were alone safe from the fire of the guns, but where they were also useless. A large pile of iron, an article so coveted, was in plain sight, beneath a shed, but he did not dare to send a single hand to touch it, since it would have brought the adventurer under fire. A variety of other articles, almost as tempting, though not perhaps of the same intrinsic value, lay also in sight, but were tabooed by the magic of powder and balls. Eleven hundred warriors, as was afterwards ascertained, landed on the Reef that eventful morning, and assembled under the walls of the crater. A hundred more remained in the canoes, which lay about a league off, in the western passage, or to leeward, i waiting the result of the enterprise.