distant and low tones of a human voice, which, as I continued to
give ear, grew steadily louder and nearer.

This put me in a great fear, and I crawled under cover of the nearest
live-oak, and squatted there, hearkening, as silent as a mouse.

Another voice answered; and then the first voice, which I now recognised
to be Silver's, once more took up the story, and ran on for a long while
in a stream, only now and again interrupted by the other. By the sound
they must have been talking earnestly, and almost fiercely; but no
distinct word came to my hearing.

At last the speakers seemed to have paused, and perhaps to have sat down;
for not only did they cease to draw any nearer, but the birds themselves
began to grow more quiet, and to settle again to their places in the
swamp.

And now I began to feel that I was neglecting my business; that since I
had been so foolhardy as to come ashore with these desperadoes, the least
I could do was to overhear them at their councils; and that my plain and
obvious duty was to draw as close as I could manage, under the favourable
ambush of the crouching trees.

I could tell the direction of the speakers pretty exactly, not only by
the sound of their voices, but by the behaviour of the few birds that
still hung in alarm above the heads of the intruders.

Crawling on all-fours, I made steadily but slowly towards them; till at
last, raising my head to an aperture among the leaves, I could see clear
down into a little green dell beside the marsh, and closely set about
with trees, where Long John Silver and another of the crew stood face to
face in conversation.

The sun beat full upon them. Silver had thrown his hat beside him on the
ground, and his great, smooth, blonde face, all shining with heat, was
lifted to the other man's in a kind of appeal.

"Mate," he was saying, "it's because I thinks gold dust of you--gold
dust, and you may lay to that! If I hadn't took to you like pitch, do you
think I'd have been here a-warning of you? All's up--you can't make nor
mend; it's to save your neck that I'm a-speaking, and if one of the wild
'uns knew it, where 'ud I be, Tom--now, tell me, where 'ud I be?"

"Silver," said the other man--and I observed he was not only red in the
face, but spoke as hoarse as a crow, and his voice shook, too, like a
taut rope--"Silver," says he, "you're old, and you're honest, or has the
name for it; and you've money, too, which lots of poor sailors hasn't;
a