THE red glare of the torch, lighting up the interior of the block-
house, showed me the worst of my apprehensions realised. The
pirates were in possession of the house and stores: there was the
cask of cognac, there were the pork and bread, as before; and,
what tenfold increased my horror, not a sign of any prisoner. I
could only judge that all had perished, and my heart smote me
sorely that I had not been there to perish with them.

There were six of the buccaneers, all told; not another man
was left alive. Five of them were on their feet, flushed and
swollen, suddenly called out of the first sleep of drunkenness.
The sixth had only risen upon his elbow: he was deadly pale, and
the blood-stained bandage round his head told that he had
recently been wounded, and still more recently dressed. I
remembered the man who had been shot and had run back
among the woods in the great attack, and doubted not that this
was he.

The parrot sat, preening her plumage, on Long John's
shoulder. He himself, I thought, looked somewhat paler and
more stern than I was used to. He still wore the fine broadcloth
suit in which he had fulfilled his mission, but it was bitterly the
worse for wear, daubed with clay and torn with the sharp briers
of the wood.

'So,' said he, 'here's Jim Hawkins, shiver my timbers!
dropped in, like, eh? Well, come, I take that friendly.'

And.thereupon he sat down across the brandy cask, and
began to fill a pipe.

'Give me a loan of the link, Dick,' said he; and then, when
he had a good light, 'that'll do, lad,' he added; 'stick the glim
in the wood heap; and you, gentlemen, bring yourselves to! --
you needn't stand up for Mr Hawkins; he'll excuse you, you may
lay to that. And so, Jim'--stopping the tobacco--'here

-149-