I had encountered Ben Gunn, the maroon; and
I walked more circumspectly, keeping an eye on every side. The dusk had
come nigh hand completely, and, as I opened out the cleft between the two
peaks, I became aware of a wavering glow against the sky, where, as I
judged, the man of the island was cooking his supper before a roaring
fire. And yet I wondered, in my heart, that he should show himself so
careless. For if I could see this radiance, might it not reach the eyes
of Silver himself where he camped upon the shore among the marshes?

Gradually the night fell blacker; it was all I could do to guide myself
even roughly towards my destination; the double hill behind me and the
Spy-glass on my right hand loomed faint and fainter; the stars were few
and pale; and in the low ground where I wandered I kept tripping among
bushes and rolling into sandy pits.

Suddenly a kind of brightness fell about me. I looked up; a pale glimmer
of moonbeams had alighted on the summit of the Spy-glass, and soon after
I saw something broad and silvery moving low down behind the trees, and
knew the moon had risen.

With this to help me, I passed rapidly over what remained to me of my
journey; and, sometimes walking, sometimes running, impatiently drew near
to the stockade. Yet, as I began to thread the grove that lies before it,
I was not so thoughtless but that I slackened my pace and went a trifle
warily. It would have been a poor end of my adventures to get shot down
by my own party in mistake.

The moon was climbing higher and higher; its light began to fall here and
there in masses through the more open districts of the wood; and right in
front of me a glow of a different colour appeared among the trees. It was
red and hot, and now and again it was a little darkened--as it were the
embers of a bonfire smouldering.

For the life of me, I could not think what it might be.

At last I came right down upon the borders of the clearing. The western
end was already steeped in moonshine: the rest, and the block-house
itself, still lay in a black shadow, chequered with long, silvery streaks
of light. On the other side of the house an immense fire had burned
itself into clear embers and shed a steady, red reverberation, contrasted
strongly with the mellow paleness of the moon. There was not a soul
stirring, nor a sound beside the noises of the breezes.

I stopped, with much wonder in my heart, and perhaps a little terror
also. It had not been