The common sort of pirates had their dwelling both in the Cells, and in a system of caves, in part natural, in part excavated out of the cliff, on the further shore of the island.

The Doctor had both a cell and a cave, sometimes taking up his abode in one, sometimes in the other. Adjacent to his cell, was his laboratory, which was described sufficiently by the Englishman in his narrative.

As concerning the Caves, I was never in them, nor so much as set eyes on them in all my sojourn on the island; being kept pretty busy from day to day with Ambrose in the Cloisters. On this account, also, I can tell you nothing of the ship-building which went on at the other side of the island. But, as that topping pirate told us, they built the ship on the pattern of the Tiger; wherein doth appear the main of the Doctor’s intent in enticing us to the island. And what we overheard him say at the volcan, as to the hatred he had for some nation, and his search for a combustible, may hint us he designed to cruise upon that nation, and with that combustible (when it was found), to destroy it. Further, as I surmise, that nation was none other than England.

But leaving this in the midst, I continue my relation.

Looking down from the cliff, then, on the morning after the destruction of the four ships, as I wended with Ambrose to the Cloisters, I spied the pirate ship lying at an anchor close in; and her longboat, heavy laden, was being rowed to the shore, to a point where some six or seven pirates stood ready to unlade her. But of the shipwracks there was never a trace.

Returning at midday, we fell in on the cliff with Surgeon Burke. He stood in converse with the surgeon of the pirate ship, and introduced me to him. I, in return, introduced Ambrose: we might have been at a country ball, there was such a ducking and bowing and doffing of hats!

When the last “Your servant, sir” had been spoken, I asked the pirate surgeon whether his voyage had prospered. He answered grimly that they had gotten more blood than purchase; whereupon Burke clapt him on the shoulder for a “jolly leg and joint-carver for Jack Shark.”

“But come, Frank,” says Burke, turning to me and crooking his arm in mine, “come you for a jaunt with me. It’s long since we had sweet converse, you and I; and Mr. Ambrose, I’ll warrant, will not be hard hearted enough to withhold ye!”

“Nay,” says Ambrose, “you may take your jaunt for me.”

“Give me leave,” hereupon thrust in the pirate, and would have taken my other arm; but I stepped on one side and put him off: whereupon he laid hold on Burke instead.

Now, it was evident that Burke was willing to converse me in private, and wanted none of the other; yet he was so nice and genial by nature, that to tell the man plainly so, he would not, but must be still mincing the matter, throwing out one glancing hint or another, which upon the tough hide of the pirate proved but glancing indeed.

But I, who could not away with such trifling, put a period to it presently.

“Mr. Harper,” says I (for such was the pirate’s name), “Two are company, three are none. ’Tis an old saying.”

He stared at me; then he flared up.

“What mean you by that, you prating fool?” cried he.

“I mean,” quoth I, “since you’re so dull, that your room is better than your company.”

On that he drew his hanger and made a pass on me; but I, too, could sail on that course: not for nothing had I wrought at Clayton Manor, and learnt to hold a foil under one of the cunningest sworders of Italy. I stepped swiftly aside, and drew my rapier; and, as sword and pirate came blundering by me, I caught the one a tricksy turn beneath the haft, so that it sped hurtling in the air, and gave the other so shrewd a taste of rapier-point as set him howling.

He recovered himself; and, firing off a volley of threats and imprecations at me, turned furiously, and cast about for his hanger. It was fallen, however, into a cane-brake.... We left him to fish it out as best he could, and parted from him, not without laughter. I doubt not, he wished he had his pistols.

“’Twas jolly sport,” cried I, giving him a parting shot. “Another day we’ll to’t again!”

And Burke, who had got over his queasiness, added:

“As good as quoits, i’ faith!” and bent double with a laughter-fit.

Indeed, we were gotten quite out of sight of the pirate ere Burke ceased to make merry over him. Burke was ever inclined to hilarity; but never, methought, so high as this. As we swung along arm in arm, and taking no heed of the way, he began to tell me many a merry tale and many a jolly jest. But sure his jollity was a malignant jollity, an elfin intoxication....

The island was most witchingly beautiful, the woodland being a harmony of green and gold, a chequer-work of mellow light and flashing arcs; whilst golden shadows waved, and jewelled motes danced in the shade of the bowering trees.

Of all the merry japes that Burke told me then, but one remains in my memory, like a gaudy picture in a dark frame. It was the last jest he was to make in this world.

“Did ever I tell you, Frank,” said he, “of old John Baluster and the fun we had with him when I was a boy? No? Well, this Baluster, you must know, was a miserly flint of a man, and withal as guzzling and greedy as a cardinal. He contrived to stuff his paunch, and husband his moneybags, by quartering himself upon his acquaintances—friends he had none; and kept flitting from one easy-going soul to another of such as would suffer him.

“Of these was my father; a country doctor he, but one more busied with his garden, his plum trees, his dahlias, his roses, than with the sick, of which (to speak sooth), he dealt with but a few, and of that few (dear man), killed as many as he cured.

“Well, on a day when Baluster was thus battening upon us, having already stayed above a month, my brother Dirk and I resolved, by fair means or foul, to fire him out from thence.

“We stole into the parlour, where ’twas his custom of an afternoon to snore off the surfeits of his midday meal. There of a surety lay John, a tunbelly of a man, a weary burden for my mother’s dainty settee. His bald pate was covered about with a crimson scarf (Lord! I can see him now); his vast mouth sagged open like a cod’s, the horrible sound that issued therefrom frighted off the flies.

“For a space we stood, Dirk and I, looking on him; then stole up; and, betwixt those cavernous jaws, each, one after t’other, did empty a black draught!

“We did this thing again on the next day; and on the next we gave him the equal of three black draughts!

“A change came over John Baluster. He lost great part of his equanimity. He became a trouble to my father: followed him about, a consulting importunity. My father administered unto him many various drugs; my father bled him. Meanwhile, by some device or other contrived by Dirk and me, he never wanted for his black draughts. He had tendance enough!

“At last he took a notion that some one of the servants was poisoning him, had his trunk packed the self-same day, and departed.”

Burke ended with loud laughter, in which, I joined; for he had a droll, dry manner of telling a tale. Also I had contracted this while much of his outrageous jollity. Hereafter, as though spent with such laughter, we fell silent.

But, it seemed to me, that upon the woods, also, a silence fell, and a shadow and a fear. I looked up; but the sky was deep blue, and no cloud obscured the sun.

Suddenly we came to a stop. There had come a sound of singing in the woods, and the voice that sang was that unearthly, magical high treble!

And thus it was:

“What is it?” cried Burke. “Where is it?”

Hereupon he set off running in the direction whence the singing had appeared to come. I followed; but I run lurching to this side and that like a drunken man.

We came within a thick wood. Suddenly I, who had taken no thought of the way hitherto, espied close at hand a curious triad of palm trees which I remembered to have seen before.

I thought swiftly as I went, asking myself where I had seen those trees, and the answer was borne in upon my mind with a gush of fear: I remarked them in my second passing with Ambrose through the second wood, and they stood in that region of the wood which he had warned me against venturing into!

I hallooed to Burke, who was gotten some way in advance of me. “Come back!” cried I, “Come back!”

But too late!

For, having found his way obstructed by a sort of hedge, or clump, of mangrove roots, he had leapt over it; and his voice came to me in a note of fear.

“Help!” cried he, “I sink! Climb the hedge.... Nay, cut a stick and hold it forth to me. Haste! Haste!”

I spied a strong sapling, whipped out my knife, and cut it through. With this in my hand, I mounted to a fork in the hedge, and looked over.

There lay a tract of flat ground, all grown over with shimmering green and yellow moss and mottled with lichen and fungi, which stretched away to tall reeds, and thence to woods. A mist hung over it, and a cloud of buzzing insects. On the marge stood Burke sunk to his thighs in ooze, and sinking still. His face, as he turned it towards me, was drawn and grey, and moist with the sweat of fear.

Staying myself upon the fork, I held the sapling forth to him. He clutched it, and I pulled away; but, though I used my utmost endeavours, straining to the last bent, I could not hale him out: the morass held him like a live thing.

Indeed, my efforts did but hasten his fate; for, when, my strength being spent, I desisted, it began to suck him in faster than before. At length I yielded the attempt.

Thereupon Burke bethought him to cast himself flat, that his body might offer the greater obstruction to the swamp; but it was too late: he was sunk too deep.

At last he ceased to struggle, and yielded himself for lost; and, conquering his terror as well as he could, be entrusted to me certain charges in respect of his wife and child, to enact if ever I should return to England. He died bravely, committing his spirit unto God.

But this dreadful passage wrought a strange effect in me. It filled me full of anger against Doctor Copicus and all his works. As I gazed upon the morass, which lay all shimmering and steaming in the sun-glare, I swore that I would bring the man to the bar of justice and judgment.

I stood there in the dank wood, in the dismal shade of the mangrove trees, and I raged—I, a weak, futile lad—against the man whose might was like a strong tower. And suddenly, as though deriding me, the voice of the volcan roared in thunder....

It came into my mind that the volcan was a demoniac creature of the Doctor enforcing and bodying forth his power; and, on the thought, I shook my clenched fist towards the place where it stood concealed.

But, ah, if I had but known!

---

It was becoming late; so I turned, and set off, wending slowly and heavily, to the Cells.

As I came forth from the wood, I spied divers of our men gathered together in talk, lying sprawling upon the cliff; and, coasting over to them, I sat down in the midst, and began to question them upon their lot in the island, and how it liked them. For I was willing to learn whether there might be any possibility of banding them together in a venture against the Doctor.

It appeared, however, that they were all well content with the new state of things, and to consort with the pirates.

Nay, they looked eagerly forward to go out on the account (as the saying is), and to take part in many a brave carouse at Caraccas or at Port Royal.