stay here and find Flint's money for
yourself,' they says.

"Well, Jim, three years have I been here, and not a bite of Christian
diet from that day to this. But now, you look here; look at me. Do I look
like a man before the mast? No, says you. Nor I weren't neither, I says."

And with that he winked and pinched me hard.

"Just you mention them words to your squire, Jim"--he went on: "Nor he
weren't, neither--that's the words. Three years he were the man of this
island, light and dark, fair and rain; and sometimes he would, maybe,
think upon a prayer (says you), and sometimes he would, maybe, think of
his old mother, so be as she's alive (you'll say); but the most part of
Gunn's time (this is what you'll say)--the most part of his time was took
up with another matter. And then you'll give him a nip, like I do."

And he pinched me again in the most confidential manner.

"Then," he continued--"then you'll up, and you'll say this:--Gunn is a
good man (you'll say), and he puts a precious sight more confidence--a
precious sight, mind that--in a gen'leman born than in these gen'lemen of
fortune, having been one hisself."

"Well," I said, "I don't understand one word that you've been saying. But
that's neither here nor there; for how am I to get on board?"

"Ah," said he, "that's the hitch, for sure. Well, there's my boat, that I
made with my two hands. I keep her under the white rock. If the worst
come to the worst, we might try that after dark.--Hi!" he broke out,
"what's that?"

For just then, although the sun had still an hour or two to run, all the
echoes of the island awoke and bellowed to the thunder of a cannon.

"They have begun to fight!" I cried. "Follow me."

And I began to run towards the anchorage, my terrors all forgotten;
while, close at my side, the marooned man in his goatskins trotted easily
and lightly.

"Left, left," says he; "keep to your left hand, mate Jim! Under the trees
with you! Theer's where I killed my first goat. They don't come down here
now; they're all mast-headed on them mountings for the fear of Benjamin
Gunn. Ah! and there's the cetemery"--cemetery, he must have meant. "You
see the mounds? I come here and prayed, nows and thens, when I thought
maybe a Sunday would be about doo. It weren't quite a chapel, but it
seemed more solemn like; and then, says you, Ben Gunn was
short-handed--no chapling, nor so much as a Bible and a flag you says."

So he kept talking as I ran, neither