of
a mile farther down the spit, and it took me a goodish while to get up
with it, crawling, often on all-fours, among the scrub. Night had almost
come when I laid my hand on its rough sides. Right below it there was
an exceedingly small hollow of green turf, hidden by banks and a thick
underwood about knee-deep, that grew there very plentifully; and in the
center of the dell, sure enough, a little tent of goat-skins, like what
the gypsies carry about with them in England.

I dropped into the hollow, lifted the side of the tent, and there was
Ben Gunn's boat--homemade if ever anything was homemade--a rude,
lopsided framework of tough wood, and stretched upon that a covering of
goat-skin, with the hair inside. The thing was extremely small, even for
me, and I can hardly imagine that it could have floated with a
full-sized man. There was one thwart set as low as possible, a kind of
stretcher in the bows, and a double paddle for propulsion.

I had not then seen a coracle, such as the ancient Britons made, but I
have seen one since, and I can give you no fairer idea of Ben Gunn's
boat than by saying it was like the first and the worst coracle ever
made by man. But the great advantage of the coracle it certainly
possessed, for it was exceedingly light and portable.

Well, now that I had found the boat, you would have thought I had had
enough of truantry for once; but in the meantime I had taken another
notion, and become so obstinately fond of it that I would have carried
it out, I believe, in the teeth of Captain Smollett himself. This was to
slip out under cover of the night, cut the _Hispaniola_ adrift, and let
her go ashore where she fancied. I had quite made up my mind that the
mutineers, after their repulse of the morning, had nothing nearer their
hearts than to up anchor and away to sea; this, I thought, it would be a
fine thing to prevent, and now that I had seen how they left their
watchman unprovided with a boat, I thought it might be done with little
risk.

Down I sat to wait for darkness, and made a hearty meal of biscuit. It
was a night out of ten thousand for my purpose. The fog had now buried
all heaven. As the last rays of daylight dwindled and disappeared,
absolute blackness settled down on Treasure Island. And when, at last, I
shouldered the coracle, and groped my way stumblingly out of the hollow
where I had supped, there were but two points visible on the whole
anchorage.

One was the great fire on