had slipped into a boat and was gone ashore with the rest.

It never occurred to us to doubt Jim Hawkins, but we were alarmed for
his safety. With the men in the temper they were in, it seemed an even
chance if we should see the lad again. We ran on deck. The pitch was
bubbling in the seams; the nasty stench of the place turned me sick;
if ever a man smelt fever and dysentery, it was in that abominable
anchorage. The six scoundrels were sitting grumbling under a sail in the
forecastle; ashore we could see the gigs made fast and a man sitting
in each, hard by where the river runs in. One of them was whistling
"Lillibullero."

Waiting was a strain, and it was decided that Hunter and I should go
ashore with the jolly-boat in quest of information.

The gigs had leaned to their right, but Hunter and I pulled straight in,
in the direction of the stockade upon the chart. The two who were
left guarding their boats seemed in a bustle at our appearance;
"Lillibullero" stopped off, and I could see the pair discussing what
they ought to do. Had they gone and told Silver, all might have turned
out differently; but they had their orders, I suppose, and decided to
sit quietly where they were and hark back again to "Lillibullero."

There was a slight bend in the coast, and I steered so as to put it
between us; even before we landed we had thus lost sight of the gigs.
I jumped out and came as near running as I durst, with a big silk
handkerchief under my hat for coolness' sake and a brace of pistols
ready primed for safety.

I had not gone a hundred yards when I reached the stockade.

This was how it was: a spring of clear water rose almost at the top of a
knoll. Well, on the knoll, and enclosing the spring, they had clapped a
stout loghouse fit to hold two score of people on a pinch and loopholed
for musketry on either side. All round this they had cleared a wide
space, and then the thing was completed by a paling six feet high,
without door or opening, too strong to pull down without time and labour
and too open to shelter the besiegers. The people in the log-house had
them in every way; they stood quiet in shelter and shot the others like
partridges. All they wanted was a good watch and food; for, short of a
complete surprise, they might have held the place against a regiment.

What particularly took my fancy was the spring. For though we had a good
enough place of it in the cabin of the HISPANIOLA, with plenty of arms
and amm