he had
gone to Silver, given him the chart, which was now useless; given him
the stores, for Ben Gunn's cave was well supplied with goats' meat
salted by himself; given anything and everything to get a chance of
moving in safety from the stockade to the two-pointed hill, there to be
clear of malaria and keep a guard upon the money.

"As for you, Jim," he said, "it went against my heart, but I did what I
thought best for those who had stood by their duty; and if you were not
one of these, whose fault was it?"

That morning, finding that I was to be involved in the horrid
disappointment he had prepared for the mutineers, he had run all the way
to the cave, and, leaving squire to guard the captain, had taken Gray
and the maroon, and started, making the diagonal across the island, to
be at hand beside the pine. Soon, however, he saw that our party had the
start of him; and Ben Gunn, being fleet of foot, had been dispatched in
front to do his best alone. Then it had occurred to him to work upon the
superstitions of his former shipmates; and he was so far successful that
Gray and the doctor had come up and were already ambushed before the
arrival of the treasure-hunters.

"Ah," said Silver, "it was fortunate for me that I had Hawkins here. You
would have let old John be cut to bits, and never given it a thought,
doctor."

"Not a thought," replied Doctor Livesey, cheerily.

And by this time we had reached the gigs. The doctor, with the pickax,
demolished one of them, and then we all got aboard the other, and set
out to go round by the sea for North Inlet.

This was a run of eight or nine miles. Silver, though he was almost
killed already with fatigue, was set to an oar, like the rest of us, and
we were soon skimming swiftly over a smooth sea. Soon we passed out of
the straits and doubled the southeast corner of the island, round which,
four days ago, we had towed the _Hispaniola_.

As we passed the two-pointed hill we could see the black mouth of Ben
Gunn's cave, and a figure standing by it, leaning on a musket. It was
the squire, and we waved a handkerchief and gave him three cheers, in
which the voice of Silver joined as heartily as any.

Three miles farther, just inside the mouth of North Inlet, what should
we meet but the _Hispaniola_, cruising by herself! The last flood had
lifted her, and had there been much wind, or a strong tide current, as
in the southern anchorage, we should never have found her more, or fo