said I, "and now may I go?"

"You won't forget?" he inquired anxiously. "Precious sight, and reasons
of his own, says you. Reasons of his own; that's the mainstay; as between
man and man. Well, then"--still holding me--"I reckon you can go, Jim.
And, Jim, if you was to see Silver, you wouldn't go for to sell Ben Gunn?
wild horses wouldn't draw it from you? No, says you. And if them pirates
camp ashore, Jim, what would you say but there'd be widders in the
morning?"

Here he was interrupted by a loud report, and a cannon-ball came tearing
through the trees and pitched in the sand, not a hundred yards from where
we two were talking. The next moment each of us had taken to his heels in
a different direction.

For a good hour to come frequent reports shook the island, and balls kept
crashing through the woods. I moved from hiding-place to hiding-place,
always pursued, or so it seemed to me, by these terrifying missiles. But
towards the end of the bombardment, though still I durst not venture in
the direction of the stockade, where the balls fell oftenest, I had
begun, in a manner, to pluck up my heart again; and after a long detour
to the east, crept down among the shoreside trees.

The sun had just set, the sea-breeze was rustling and tumbling in the
woods, and ruffling the grey surface of the anchorage; the tide, too, was
far out, and great tracts of sand lay uncovered; the air, after the heat
of the day, chilled me through my jacket.

The _Hispaniola_ still lay where she had anchored; but, sure enough,
there was the Jolly Roger--the black flag of piracy--flying from her
peak. Even as I looked, there came another red flash and another report,
that sent the echoes clattering, and one more round-shot whistled through
the air. It was the last of the cannonade.

I lay for some time, watching the bustle which succeeded the attack. Men
were demolishing something with axes on the beach near the stockade; the
poor jolly-boat, I afterwards discovered. Away, near the mouth of the
river, a great fire was glowing among the trees, and between that point
and the ship one of the gigs kept coming and going, the men, whom I had
seen so gloomy, shouting at the oars like children. But there was a sound
in their voices which suggested rum.

At length I thought I might return towards the stockade. I was pretty far
down on the low, sandy spit that encloses the anchorage to the east, and
is joined at half-water to Skeleton Island; and n