who earned their living as pirates.

Thinking I might find something on his person to acquaint me with his
story or that would furnish me with some idea of the date of his being
cast away, I pulled his cloak aside and searched his pockets. His legs
were thickly cased in two or three pairs of breeches, the outer pair
being of a dark green cloth. He also wore a handsome red waistcoat,
laced, and a stout coat of a kind of frieze. In his coat pocket I found
a silver tobacco-box, a small glass flask fitted with a silver band and
half full of an amber-coloured liquor, hard froze; and in his waistcoat
pocket a gold watch, shaped like an apple, the back curiously chased and
inlaid with jewels of several kinds, forming a small letter M. The
hands pointed to twenty minutes after three. A key of a strange shape
and a number of seals, trinkets, and the like, were attached to the
watch.

These things, together with a knife, a key, a thick plain silver ring,
and some Spanish pieces in gold and silver were what I found on this
man. There was nothing to tell me who he was nor how long he had been on
the island.

The searching him was the most disagreeable job I ever undertook in my
life. His iron-like rigidity made him seem to resist me, and the swaying
of his back against the rock to the motions of my hand was so full of
life that twice I quitted him, frightened by it. On touching his naked
hand by accident I discovered that the flesh of it moved upon the bones
as you pull a glove off and on. I had had enough of him, and walked away
feeling sick. If he had companions, and they were like him, I did not
want to see them, unless it was that I might satisfy my curiosity as to
the time they had been here. I determined, however, on my way back to
take his cloak, which would make me a comfortable rug in the boat, and
also the watch, flask, and tobacco-box; for if I was drowned they could
but go to the bottom of the sea, which was their certain destination if
I left them in his pockets; and if I came off with them, then the money
they would bring me must somewhat lighten the loss of my clothes and
property in the brig.

I pushed onwards, stepping warily and probing cautiously at every step,
and earnestly peering about me, for after such a sight as that dead man
I was never to know what new wonder I might stumble upon. About a
quarter of a mile on my left--that is, on my left whilst I kept my face
to the slope--there was the appearance of