“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 cannonball 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 shore-side 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 now, as I rose to my feet, I saw, some distance further down the spit and rising from among low bushes, an isolated rock, pretty high, and peculiarly white in colour.  It occurred to me that this might be the white rock of which Ben Gunn had spoken and that some day or other a boat might be wanted and I should know where to look for one.

Then I skirted among the woods until I had regained the rear, or shoreward side, of the stockade, and was soon warmly welcomed by the faithful party.