summit, and mighty cautious, I
came where I might look down into the cleft.

They lay sprawled about their fire, four grim-looking fellows, ragged
and unkempt, three of them talking together and one who lay groaning
ever and anon.

"Be damned, t'ye, Joel for a lily-livered dog!" growled a great, bony
fellow, "Here's good an island as man can want--"

"And full of bloody Indians--eh, Humphrey?" says a black-jowled fellow,
turning on the wounded man. "Us do know the Indians, don't us
Humphrey? Inca, Aztec, Mosquito and Cimaroon, we know 'em and their
devil's ways, don't us, Humphrey?"

"Aye--aye!" groaned the wounded man. "They tortured me once and
they've done for me at last, by God! My shoulder's afire--"

"And the shaft as took ye, Humphrey, were a Indian shaft--a Indian
shaft, weren't it, lad? And all trimmed wi' gold, aren't it? Here, ye
may see for yourselves! 'Sequently I do know it for the shaft of a
chief or cacique and where a cacique is there's Indians wi' him--O
thick as thieves--I know and Humphrey knows! I say this curst island
be full of Indians, thick as fleas, curse 'em! And they'll have us
soon or late and torment us. So what I says is, let's away at the
flood and stand away for the Main--the sea may be bad now and then, but
Indians be worse--always and ever!"

"Why, as to that, Ned, the Indians ha' left us alone--"

"Aye!" cried the bony man, "And what o' the wench--her was no Indian, I
lay! A fine, dainty piece she was, by hooky! And handsome,
ah--handsome! But for Humphrey's bungling--"

Here the man Humphrey groaned and cursed the speaker bitterly.

"Howbeit--'twas an Indian arrer!" says Ned. "And that means Indians,
and Indians means death to all on us--ask Humphrey! Death--eh,
Humphrey?"

"Aye--death!" groaned Humphrey, "Death's got his grapples aboard me
now. I'm a-dying, mates--dying! Get me aboard, death will come easier
in open water."

"Why, if ye must die, Humphrey," growled the bony man, "die, lad, die
and get done wi' it, the sooner the better. As to Indians I wait till
I see 'em, and as for Death--"

"Death?" gasped Humphrey, "Here's for you first!" and whipping out a
knife he made a fierce thrust at the speaker; but the others closed
with him. Then as they strove together panting and cursing I rose to
come at them; but the wounded man, chancing to lift his head, saw me
where I stood, the moonlight on my bloody face, and uttered a hoarse
scream.

"Death