I had a strong enough crew to do this, and had no doubt as to our ability to carry the schooner in the face of the most determined resistance that the pirates could offer.  Then, the schooner captured and her crew safely confined below, the establishment ashore would have no alternative but to surrender at discretion, or be annihilated by the schooner's guns.  There was only one weak point that I could see in this scheme, which was that a considerable number of the men constituting the shore portion of the establishment might escape into the interior of the island, unless some means were devised to prevent them.  It was, however, not very difficult to accomplish this; for it will be remembered that there was but one way of entrance to--and egress from-- the Cove on the land side, namely, a narrow and very dangerous zigzag path down the face of the perpendicular cliff, a gap in which, wide enough to prevent all effectual possibility of passage that way, might easily be made by the explosion of a bag of powder.  The preparations for the little expedition which was to accomplish this piece of work were made during the time that we were lying becalmed off the mouth of the Cove; and when at length we entered, a boat, containing four seamen in charge of a midshipman, who had been most carefully instructed concerning the precise nature of the duty which he was to perform, was cast adrift, just inside the Heads, but outside the islet which masked the entrance.  While they pulled away for the shore we in the felucca stood on into the Cove, every man of us with his sword or cutlass girded to his waist, and a brace of loaded pistols thrust into his belt, standing ready to leap aboard the schooner--should she happen to be in the roadstead.