The first luff was terribly shocked at the news which I had to tell him; from a distance he had seen the skipper fall, but had hoped that it was a wound, at most.  But this was not the moment for unavailing regrets; the fall of the captain at once placed Perry in command and made him responsible for the fate of the expedition.  He therefore gave orders for the guns which were mounted in the bows of the launch, pinnace, and first and second cutters to be cast loose and landed, the men not engaged in this work being placed under the command of the third lieutenant, with instructions to load their muskets and keep up a constant fire upon the windows of the various buildings.  Then, as soon as the guns were landed, two of them were loaded with double charges of grape, for the purpose of clearing the bush of the hidden foe, while the remaining two were double shotted and then run close up to the barricaded doors of the buildings, which were thus blown in, one after the other.  As each door was blown in the building to which it belonged was stormed; the enemy, however, contriving to effect an exit by the rear as our lads poured in at the front.  In ten minutes the whole of the buildings were ours, without further casualties on our side; after which we set them on fire and, waiting until they were well alight, retired in good order to the boats, in which we hauled off far enough to enable us to effectively cover the burning buildings with our musketry fire and thus defeat any attempt to extinguish the flames.  An hour later the entire settlement was reduced to a heap of smouldering ashes; whereupon we pulled away round to the main stream once more by way of the back of the island, in search of further possible barracoons, but found none.