rst time since we had left James Town. "It
is hard to approach the Master, and my brother must follow me close as
the panther follows the deer. Where Shalah puts his foot let my brother
put his also. Come."

He stepped from the boat to the hill-side, and with incredible speed
and stillness began to ascend. His long, soft strides were made without
noise or effort, whether the ground were moss, or a tangle of vines, or
loose stones, or the trunks of fallen trees, I had prided myself on my
hill-craft, but beside the Indian I was a blundering child, I might
have made shift to travel as fast, but it was the silence of his
progress that staggered me, I plunged, and slipped, and sprawled, and
my heart was bursting before the ascent ceased, and we stole to the
left along the hill shoulder.

Presently came a gap in the trees, and I looked down in the last
greyness of dusk on a strange and beautiful sight. The channel led to a
landlocked pool, maybe a mile around, and this was as full of shipping
as a town's harbour. The water was but a pit of darkness, but I could
make out the masts rising into the half light, and I counted more than
twenty vessels in that port. No light was shown, and the whole place
was quiet as a grave.

We entered a wood of small hemlocks, and I felt rather than saw the
ground slope in front of us. About two hundred feet above the water the
glen of a little stream shaped itself into a flat cup, which was
invisible from below, and girdled on three sides by dark forest. Here
we walked more freely, till we came to the lip of the cup, and there,
not twenty paces below me, I saw a wonderful sight. The hollow was lit
with the glow of a dozen fires, round which men clustered. Some were
busy boucanning meat for ship's food, some were cooking supper, some
sprawled in idleness, and smoked or diced. The night had now grown very
black around us, and we were well protected, for the men in the glow
had their eyes dazed, and could not spy into the darkness. We came very
close above them, so that I could hear their talk. The smell of
roasting meat pricked my hunger, and I realized that the salt air had
given me a noble thirst. They were common seamen from the pirate
vessels, and, as far as I could judge, they had no officer among them.
I remarked their fierce, dark faces, and the long knives with which
they slashed and trimmed the flesh for their boucanning.

Shalah touched my hand, and I followed him into the wood. We