s he could judge, from the landing-place, became very
difficult. In the forest there were streams, sometimes narrow and
sometimes wide, and how deep he knew not, so that now he jumped, now he
walked on fallen trees. Sometimes he crossed water and marsh by swinging
himself from the limbs of one tree to those of another. This was hard
work for a young gentleman in a naval uniform and cocked hat, but it had
to be done; and when the hat was knocked off it was picked up again,
with its feathers dripping.

Dickory was going somewhere, although he knew not whither, and he had
solemn business to perform which he had sworn to do, and therefore he
must have fit clothes to wear, not only in which to travel but in which
to present himself suitably when he should accomplish his mission. All
these things Dickory thought of, and he picked up his cocked hat
whenever it dropped. He would have been very hungry had he not bethought
himself to fill his pockets with biscuits before he left the vessel. And
as to fresh water, there was no lack of that.

CHAPTER XXVII

A GIRL WHO LAUGHED

It was towards nightfall of the day on which Dickory had escaped from
the pirates at the spring that he found himself on a piece of high
ground in an open place in the forest, and here he determined to spend
the night. With his dirk he cut a quantity of palmetto leaves and made
himself a very comfortable bed, on which he was soon asleep, fearing no
pirates.

In the morning he rose early from his green couch, ate the few biscuits
which were left in his pockets, and, putting on his shoes and stockings,
started forth upon, what might have been supposed to be, an aimless
tramp.

But it was not aimless. Dickory had a most wholesome dread of that
indomitable apostle of cruelty and wickedness, the pirate Blackbeard. He
believed that it would be quite possible for that savage being to tie up
his beard in tails, to blacken his face with powder, to hang more
pistols from his belt and around his neck, and swear that the Revenge
should never leave her anchorage until her first lieutenant had been
captured and brought back to her. So he had an aim, and that was to get
away as far as possible from the spot where he had landed on the island.

He did not believe that his pursuers, if there were any upon his track,
could have travelled in the night, for it had been pitchy black; and, as
he now had a good start of them, he thought he might go so far that they