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Owing to the cant of the vessel, the masts hung far out over the water,and from my perch on the crosstrees I had nothing below me but thesurface of the bay. Hands, who was not so far up, was, in consequence,nearer to the ship, and fell between me and the bulwarks. He rose onceto the surface in a lather of foam and blood, and then sank again forgood. As the water settled, I could see him lying huddled together onthe clean, bright sand in the shadow of the vessel's sides. A fish ortwo whipped past his body. Sometimes, by the quivering of the water, heappeared to move a little, as if he were trying to rise. But he was deadenough, for all that, being both shot and drowned, and was food for fishin the very place where he had designed my slaughter.

I was no sooner certain of this than I began to feel sick, faint, andterrified. The hot blood was running over my back and chest. The dirk,where it had pinned my shoulder to the mast, seemed to burn like a hotiron; yet it was not so much these real sufferings that distressed me,for these, it seemed to me, I could bear without a murmur; it was thehorror I had upon my mind of falling from the crosstree into that still,green water beside the body of the coxswain.

I clung with both hands till my nails ached, and I shut my eyes as if tocover up the peril. Gradually my mind came back again, my pulsesquieted down to a more natural time, and I was once more in possessionof myself.

It was my first thought to pluck forth the dirk; but either it stuck toohard or my nerve failed me, and I desisted with a violent shudder. Oddlyenough, that very shudder did the business. The knife, in fact, had comethe nearest in the world to missing me altogether; it held me by a merepinch of skin, and this the shudder tore away. The blood ran down thefaster, to be sure, but I was my own master again, and only tacked tothe mast by my coat and shirt.

These last I broke through with a sudden jerk, and then regained thedeck by the starboard shrouds. For nothing in the world would I haveagain ventured, shaken as I was, upon the overhanging port shrouds, fromwhich Israel had so lately fallen.

I went below and did what I could for my wound; it pained me a gooddeal, and still bled freely, but it was neither deep nor dangerous, nordid it greatly gall me when I used my arm. Then I looked around me, andas the ship was now, in a sense, my own, I began to think of clearing itfrom its last passenger--the dead man, O'Brien.

He had pitched, as I have said, against the bulwarks, where he lay likesome horrid, ungainly sort of puppet; life-size, indeed, but howdifferent from life's color or life's comeliness! In that position, Icould easily have my way with him, and as the habit of tragicaladventures had worn off almost all my terror for the dead, I took him bythe waist as if he had been a sack of bran, and, with one good heave,tumbled him overboard. He went in with a sounding plunge; the red capcame off, and remained floating on the surface; and as soon as thesplash subsided, I could see him and Israel lying side by side, bothwavering with the tremulous movement of the water. O'Brien, though stillquite a young man, was very bald. There he lay with that bald headacross the knees of the man who killed him, and the quick fishessteering to and fro over both.

I was now alone upon the ship; the tide had just turned. The sun waswithin so few degrees of setting that already the shadow of the pinesupon the western shore began to reach right across the anchorage andfall in patterns on the deck. The evening breeze had sprung up, andthough it was well warded off by the hill with the two peaks upon theeast, the cordage had begun to sing a little softly to itself and theidle sails to rattle to and fro.

I began to see a danger to the ship. The jibs I speedily doused andbrought tumbling to the deck, but the mainsail was a harder matter. Ofcourse, when the schooner canted over, the boom had swung outboard, andthe cap of it and a foot or two of sail hung even under water. I thoughtthis made it still more dangerous, yet the strain was so heavy that Ihalf feared to meddle. At last I got my knife and cut the halyards. Thepeak dropped instantly, a great belly of loose canvas floated broad uponthe water; and since, pull as I liked, I could not budge the downhaul,that was the extent of what I could accomplish. For the rest, the_Hispaniola_ must trust to luck, like myself.

By this time the whole anchorage had fallen into shadow--the last rays,I remember, falling through a glade of the wood, and shining bright asjewels on the flowery mantle of the wreck. It began to be chill, thetide was rapidly fleeting seaward, the schooner settling more and moreon her beam-ends.

I scrambled forward and looked over. It seemed shallow enough, andholding the cut hawser in both hands for a last security, I let myselfdrop softly overboard. The water scarcely reached my waist; the sand wasfirm and covered with ripple-marks, and I waded ashore in great spirits,leaving the _Hispaniola_ on her side, with her mainsail trailing wideupon the surface of the bay. About the same time the sun went fairlydown, and the breeze whistled low in the dusk among the tossing pines.

At least, and at last, I was off the sea, nor had I returned thenceempty-handed. There lay the schooner, clear at last from buccaneers andready for our own men to board and get to sea again. I had nothingnearer my fancy than to get home to the stockade and boast of myachievements. Possibly I might be blamed a bit for my truantry, but therecapture of the _Hispaniola_ was a clinching answer, and I hoped thateven Captain Smollett would confess I had not lost my time.

So thinking, and in famous spirits, I began to set my face homeward forthe blockhouse and my companions. I remembered that the most easterly ofthe rivers which drain into Captain Kidd's anchorage ran from thetwo-peaked hill upon my left; and I bent my course in that directionthat I might pass the stream while it was small. The wood was prettyopen, and keeping along the lower spurs, I had soon turned the corner ofthat hill, and not long after waded to the mid-calf across thewatercourse.

This brought me near to where I had encountered Ben Gunn, the maroon,and I walked more circumspectly, keeping an eye on every side. The duskhad come nigh hand completely, and, as I opened out the cleft betweenthe two peaks, I became aware of a wavering glow against the sky, where,as I judged, the man of the island was cooking his supper before aroaring fire. And yet I wondered, in my heart, that he should showhimself so careless. For if I could see this radiance, might it notreach the eye of Silver himself where he camped upon the shore among themarshes?

Gradually the night fell blacker; it was all I could do to guide myselfeven roughly toward my destination; the double hill behind me and theSpy-glass on my right hand loomed faint and fainter, the stars were fewand pale, and in the low ground where I wandered I kept tripping amongbushes and rolling into sandy pits.

Suddenly a kind of brightness fell about me. I looked up; a pale glimmerof moonbeams had alighted on the summit of the Spy-glass, and soon afterI saw something broad and silvery moving low down behind the trees, andknew the moon had risen.

With this to help me, I passed rapidly over what remained to me of myjourney; and, sometimes walking, sometimes running, impatiently drewnear to the stockade. Yet, as I began to thread the grove that liesbefore it, I was not so thoughtless but that I slacked my pace and wenta trifle warily. It would have been a poor end of my adventures to getshot down by my own party in mistake.

The moon was climbing higher and higher; its light began to fall hereand there in masses through the more open districts of the wood, andright in front of me a glow of a different color appeared among thetrees. It was red and hot, and now and again it was a littledarkened--as it were the embers of a bonfire smoldering.

For the life of me I could not think what it might be.

At last I came right down upon the borders of the clearing. The westernend was already steeped in moon-shine; the rest, and the blockhouseitself, still lay in a black shadow, chequered with long, silverystreaks of light. On the other side of the house an immense fire hadburned itself into clear embers and shed a steady, red reverberation,contrasting strongly with the mellow paleness of the moon. There was nota soul stirring, nor a sound beside the noises of the breeze.

I stopped, with much wonder in my heart, and perhaps a little terroralso. It had not been our way to build great fires; we were, indeed, bythe captain's orders, somewhat niggardly of firewood, and I began tofear that something had gone wrong while I was absent.

I stole round by the eastern end, keeping close in shadow, and at aconvenient place, where the darkness was thickest, crossed the palisade.

To make assurance surer, I got upon my hands and knees, and crawled,without a sound, toward the corner of the house. As I drew nearer, myheart was suddenly and greatly lightened. It was not a pleasant noise initself, and I have often complained of it at other times, but just thenit was like music to hear my friends snoring together so loud andpeaceful in their sleep. The sea-cry of the watch, that beautiful "All'swell," never fell more reassuringly on my ear.

In the meantime there was no doubt of one thing; they kept an infamousbad watch. If it had been Silver and his lads that were now creeping inon them, not a soul would have seen daybreak. That was what it was,thought I, to have the captain wounded; and again I blamed myselfsharply for leaving them in that danger with so few to mount guard.

By this time I had got to the door and stood up. All was dark within, sothat I could distinguish nothing by the eye. As for sounds, there wasthe steady drone of the snorers, and a small occasional noise, aflickering or pecking that I could in no way account for.

With my arms before me I walked steadily in. I should lie down in my ownplace (I thought, with a silent chuckle) and enjoy their faces when theyfound me in the morning. My foot struck something yielding--it was asleeper's leg, and he turned and groaned, but without awaking.

And then, all of a sudden, a shrill voice broke forth out of thedarkness:

"Pieces of eight! pieces of eight! pieces of eight! pieces of eight!pieces of eight!" and so forth, without pause or change, like theclacking of a tiny mill.

Silver's green parrot, Captain Flint! It was she whom I had heardpecking at a piece of bark; it was she, keeping better watch than anyhuman being, who thus announced my arrival with her wearisome refrain.

I had no time left me to recover. At the sharp clipping tone of theparrot, the sleepers awoke and sprang up, and with a mighty oath thevoice of Silver cried:

"Who goes?"

I turned to run, struck violently against one person, recoiled, and ranfull into the arms of a second, who, for his part, closed upon and heldme tight.

"Bring a torch, Dick," said Silver, when my capture was thus assured.

And one of the men left the log-house, and presently returned with alighted brand.

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