Chapter 18

"To whom belongs this valley fair,
That sleeps beneath the filmy air,
Even like a living thing?
Silent as infant at the breast,
Save a still sound that speaks of rest,
That streamlet's murmuring?"

Wilson.

When the governor had communicated to his people that the savages were
actually among the islands of their own group, something very like a
panic came over them. A few minutes, however, sufficed to restore a
proper degree of confidence, when the arrangements necessary to their
immediate security were entered into. As some attention had previously
been bestowed on the fortifications of the crater, that place was justly
deemed the citadel of the Reef. Some thought the ship would be the most
easily defended, on account of the size of the crater, and because it
had a natural ditch around it, but so much property was accumulated in
and around the crater that it could not be abandoned without a loss to
which the governor had no idea of submitting. The gate of the crater was
nothing in the way of defence, it is true; but one of the cannonades had
been planted so as to command it, and this was thought sufficient for
repelling all ordinary assaults. It has been said, already, that the
outer wall of the crater was perpendicular at its base, most probably
owing to the waves of the ocean in that remote period when the whole
Reef was washed by them in every gale of wind. This perpendicular
portion of the rock, moreover, was much harder than the ordinary surface
of the Summit, owing in all probability to the same cause. It was even
polished in appearance, and in general was some eighteen or twenty feet
in height, with the exception of the two or three places, by one of
which Mark and Betts had clambered up on their first visit to the
Summit. These places, always small, and barely sufficient to allow of a
man's finding footing on them, had long been picked away, in order to
prevent the inroads of Kitty, and when the men had turned their
attention to rendering the place secure against a sudden inroad, they
being the only points where an enemy could get up, without resorting to
ladders or artificial assistance, had, by means of additional labour,
been rendered as secure as all the rest of the 'outer wall,' as the base
of the crater was usually termed among them. It was true, that civilized
assailants, who had the ordinary means at command, would soon have
mastered this obstacle; but savages would not be likely to come prepared
to meet it. The schooner, with her cradle and ways, had required all the
loose timber, to the last stick, and the enemy was not likely to procure
any supplies from the ship-yard. Two of the carronades were on the
Summit, judiciously planted; two were on board the Abraham,