e ship. The jibs I speedily doused and
brought tumbling to the deck; but the mainsail was a harder matter. Of
course, when the schooner canted over, the boom had swung out-board, and
the cap of it and a foot or two of sail hung even under water. I thought
this made it still more dangerous; yet the strain was so heavy that I
half feared to meddle. At last I got my knife and cut the halyards. The
peak dropped instantly, a great belly of loose canvas floated broad upon
the water; and since, pull as I liked, I could not budge the downhaul,
that was the extent of what I could accomplish. For the rest, the
_Hispaniola_ must trust to luck, like myself.

By this time the whole anchorage had fallen into shadow--the last rays, I
remember, falling through a glade of the wood, and shining bright as
jewels, on the flowery mantle of the wreck. It began to be chill; the
tide was rapidly fleeting seaward, the schooner settling more and more on
her beam-ends.

I scrambled forward and looked over. It seemed shallow enough, and
holding the cut hawser in both hands for a last security, I let myself
drop softly overboard. The water scarcely reached my waist; the sand was
firm and covered with ripple-marks, and I waded ashore in great spirits,
leaving the _Hispaniola_ on her side, with her mainsail trailing wide
upon the surface of the bay. About the same time the sun went fairly
down, and the breeze whistled low in the dusk among the tossing pines.

At least, and at last, I was off the sea, nor had I returned thence
empty-handed. There lay the schooner, clear at last from buccaneers and
ready for our own men to board and get to sea again. I had nothing nearer
my fancy than to get home to the stockade and boast of my achievements.
Possibly I might be blamed a bit for my truantry, but the recapture of
the _Hispaniola_ was a clenching answer, and I hoped that even Captain
Smollett would confess I had not lost my time.

So thinking, and in famous spirits, I began to set my face homeward for
the block-house and my companions. I remembered that the most easterly of
the rivers which drain into Captain Kidd's anchorage ran from the
two-peaked hill upon my left; and I bent my course in that direction that
I might pass the stream while it was small. The wood was pretty open, and
keeping along the lower spurs, I had soon turned the corner of that hill,
and not long after waded to the mid-calf across the water-course.

This brought me near to where