ike enough; you wouldn't look to find a bishop
here, I reckon. But what sort of a way is that for bones to lie? 'Tain't
in natur'."

Indeed, on a second glance, it seemed impossible to fancy that the body
was in a natural position. But for some disarray (the work, perhaps, of
the birds that had fed upon him, or of the slow-growing creeper that had
gradually enveloped his remains) the man lay perfectly straight--his
feet pointing in one direction, his hands raised above his head like a
diver's, pointing directly in the opposite.

"I've taken a notion into my old numskull," observed Silver. "Here's the
compass; there's the tip-top p'int of Skeleton Island, stickin' out like
a tooth. Just take a bearing, will you, along the line of them bones."

It was done. The body pointed straight in the direction of the island,
and the compass read duly E.S.E. by E.

"I thought so," cried the cook; "this here is a p'inter. Right up there
is our line for the Pole Star and the jolly dollars. But, by thunder! if
it don't make me cold inside to think of Flint. This is one of _his_
jokes, and no mistake. Him and these six was alone here; he killed 'em,
every man; and this one he hauled here and laid down by compass, shiver
my timbers! They're long bones, and the hair's been yellow. Ay, that
would be Allardyce. You mind Allardyce, Tom Morgan?"

"Ay, ay," returned Morgan, "I mind him; he owed me money, he did, and
took my knife ashore with him."

"Speaking of knives," said another, "why don't we find his'n lying
round? Flint warn't the man to pick a seaman's pocket; and the birds, I
guess, would leave it be."

"By the powers and that's true!" cried Silver.

"There ain't a thing left here," said Merry, still feeling round among
the bones; "not a copper doit nor a baccy box. It don't look nat'ral to
me."

"No, by gum, it don't," agreed Silver; "not nat'ral, nor not nice, says
you. Great guns, messmates, but if Flint was living this would be a hot
spot for you and me! Six they were, and six are we; and bones is what
they are now."

"I saw him dead with these here deadlights," said Morgan. "Billy took me
in. There he laid, with penny-pieces on his eyes."

"Dead--ay, sure enough he's dead and gone below," said the fellow with
the bandage; "but if ever sperrit walked it would be Flint's. Dear
heart, but he died bad, did Flint!"

"Ay, that he did," observed another; "now he raged and now he hollered
for the rum, and now he sang. 'Fift