By this time I had got to the door and stood up. All was dark within, so that I could distinguish nothing by the eye. As for sounds, there was the steady drone of the snorers and a small occasional noise, a flickering or pecking that I could in no way account for.

With my arms before me I walked steadily in. I should lie down in my own place (I thought with a silent chuckle) and enjoy their faces when they found me in the morning.

My foot struck something yielding—it was a sleeper’s leg; and he turned and groaned, but without awaking.

And then, all of a sudden, a shrill voice broke forth out of the darkness:

“Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!” and so forth, without pause or change, like the clacking of a tiny mill.

Silver’s green parrot, Captain Flint! It was she whom I had heard pecking at a piece of bark; it was she, keeping better watch than any human being, who thus announced my arrival with her wearisome refrain.

I had no time left me to recover. At the sharp, clipping tone of the parrot, the sleepers awoke and sprang up; and with a mighty oath, oath the voice of Silver cried, “Who goes?”

I turned to run, struck violently against one person, recoiled, and ran full into the arms of a second, who for his part closed upon and held me tight.

“Bring a torch, Dick,” said Silver when my capture was thus assured.

And one of the men left the log–house and presently returned with a lighted brand.

THE red glare of the torch, lighting up the interior of the block house, showed me the worst of my apprehensions realized. The pirates were in possession of the house and stores: there was the cask of cognac, there were the pork and bread, as before, and what tenfold increased my horror, not a sign of any prisoner. I could only judge that all had perished, and my heart smote me sorely that I had not been there to perish with them.

There were six of the buccaneers, all told; not another man was left alive. Five of them were on their feet, flushed and swollen, suddenly called out of the first sleep of drunkenness. The sixth had only risen upon his elbow; he was deadly pale, and the blood–stained bandage round his head told that he had recently been wounded, and still more recently dressed. I remembered the man who had been shot and had run back among the woods in the great attack, and doubted not that this was he.

The parrot sat, preening her plumage, on Long John’s shoulder. He himself, I thought, looked somewhat paler and more stern than I was used to. He still wore the fine broadcloth suit in which he had fulfilled his mission, but it was bitterly the worse for wear, daubed with clay and torn with the sharp briers of the wood.

“So,” said he, “here’s Jim Hawkins, shiver my timbers! Dropped in, like, eh? Well, come, I take that friendly.”

And thereupon he sat down across the brandy cask and began to fill a pipe.

“Give me a loan of the link, Dick,” said he; and then, when he had a good light, “That’ll do, lad,” he added; “stick the glim in the wood heap; and you, gentlemen, bring yourselves to! You needn’t stand up for Mr. Hawkins; HE’LL excuse you, you may lay to that. And so, Jim”—stopping the tobacco—“here you were, and quite a pleasant surprise for poor old John. I see you were smart when first I set my eyes on you, but this here gets away from me clean, it do.”

“Now,” said the Voice, as a third stone curved upward and hung in the air above the tramp. “Am I imagination?”

Mr. Marvel by way of reply struggled to his feet, and was immediately rolled over again. He lay quiet for a moment. “If you struggle any more,” said the Voice, “I shall throw the flint at your head.”

“It’s a fair do,” said Mr. Thomas Marvel, sitting up, taking his wounded toe in hand and fixing his eye on the third missile. “I don’t understand it. Stones flinging themselves. Stones talking. Put yourself down. Rot away. I’m done.”

The third flint fell.

“It’s very simple,” said the Voice. “I’m an invisible man.”

“Tell us something I don’t know,” said Mr. Marvel, gasping with pain. “Where you’ve hid — how you do it — I don’t know. I’m beat.”

“That’s all,” said the Voice. “I’m invisible. That’s what I want you to understand.”

“Anyone could see that. There is no need for you to be so confounded impatient, mister. Now then. Give us a notion. How are you hid?”

“I’m invisible. That’s the great point. And what I want you to understand is this — ”

“But whereabouts?” interrupted Mr. Marvel.

“Here! Six yards in front of you.”

“Oh, come! I ain’t blind. You’ll be telling me next you’re just thin air. I’m not one of your ignorant tramps — ”

“Yes, I am — thin air. You’re looking through me.”

“What! Ain’t there any stuff to you. Vox et — what is it? — jabber. Is it that?”

“I am just a human being — solid, needing food and drink, needing covering too — But I’m invisible. You see? Invisible. Simple idea. Invisible.”

“What, real like?”

“Yes, real.”

“Let’s have a hand of you,” said Marvel, “if you are real. It won’t be so darn out-of-the-way like, then — Lord!” he said, “how you made me jump! — gripping me like that!”

He felt the hand that had closed round his wrist with his disengaged fingers, and his fingers went timorously up the arm, patted a muscular chest, and explored a bearded face. Marvel’s face was astonishment.

“I’m dashed!” he said. “If this don’t beat cock-fighting! Most remarkable! — And there I can see a rabbit clean through you, ’arf a mile away! Not a bit of you visible — except — ”

He scrutinised the apparently empty space keenly. “You ’aven’t been eatin’ bread and cheese?” he asked, holding the invisible arm.

“You’re quite right, and it’s not quite assimilated into the system.”

“Ah!” said Mr. Marvel. “Sort of ghostly, though.”