een Men' were his only song, mates;
and I tell you true, I never rightly liked to hear it since. It was main
hot and the windy was open, and I hear that old song comin' out as clear
as clear--and the death-haul on the man already."

"Come, come," said Silver, "stow this talk. He's dead, and he don't
walk, that I know; leastways he won't walk by day, and you may lay to
that. Care killed a cat. Fetch ahead for the doubloons."

We started, certainly, but in spite of the hot sun and the staring
daylight, the pirates no longer ran separate and shouting through the
wood, but kept side by side and spoke with bated breath. The terror of
the dead buccaneer had fallen on their spirits.

CHAPTER XXXII

THE TREASURE-HUNT--THE VOICE AMONG THE TREES

Partly from the damping influence of this alarm, partly to rest Silver
and the sick folk, the whole party sat down as soon as they had gained
the brow of the ascent.

The plateau being somewhat tilted toward the west, this spot on which we
had paused commanded a wide prospect on either hand. Before us, over the
tree-tops, we beheld the Cape of the Woods fringed with surf; behind, we
not only looked down upon the anchorage and Skeleton Island, but
saw--clear across the spit and the eastern lowlands--a great field of
open sea upon the east. Sheer above us rose the Spy-glass, here dotted
with single pines, there black with precipices. There was no sound but
that of the distant breakers mounting from all around, and the chirp of
countless insects in the brush. Not a man, not a sail upon the sea; the
very largeness of the view increased the sense of solitude.

Silver, as he sat, took certain bearings with his compass.

"There are three 'tall trees,'" said he, "about in the right line from
Skeleton Island. 'Spy-glass Shoulder,' I take it, means that lower p'int
there. It's child's play to find the stuff now. I've half a mind to dine
first."

"I don't feel sharp," growled Morgan. "Thinkin' o' Flint--I think it
were--as done me."

"Ah, well, my son, you praise your stars he's dead," said Silver.

"He was an ugly devil," cried a third pirate, with a shudder; "that blue
in the face, too!"

"That was how the rum took him," added Merry. "Blue! well I reckon he
was blue. That's a true word."

Ever since they had found the skeleton and got upon this train of
thought, they had spoken lower and lower, and they had almost got to
whispering by now, so that the sound of their talk h