“That all he did?” asked Marvel, trying to seem at his ease.

“It’s enough, ain’t it?” said the mariner.

“Didn’t go Back by any chance?” asked Marvel. “Just escaped and that’s all, eh?”

“All!” said the mariner. “Why! — ain’t it enough?”

“Quite enough,” said Marvel.

“I should think it was enough,” said the mariner. “I should think it was enough.”

“He didn’t have any pals — it don’t say he had any pals, does it?” asked Mr. Marvel, anxious.

“Ain’t one of a sort enough for you?” asked the mariner. “No, thank Heaven, as one might say, he didn’t.”

He nodded his head slowly. “It makes me regular uncomfortable, the bare thought of that that chap running about the country! He is at present At Large, and from certain evidence it is supposed that he has — taken — took, I suppose they mean — the road to Port Stowe. You see we’re right in it! None of your American wonders, this time. And just think of the things he might do! Where’d you be, if he took a drop over and above, and had a fancy to go for you? Suppose he wants to rob — who can prevent him? He can trespass, he can burgle, he could walk through a cordon of policemen as easy as me or you you could give the slip to a blind man! Easier! For these here blind chaps hear uncommon sharp, I’m told. And wherever there was liquor he fancied — ”

“He’s got a tremenjous advantage, certainly,” said Mr. Marvel. “And — well...”

“You’re right,” said the mariner. “He has.”

All this time Mr. Marvel had been glancing about him intently, listening for faint footfalls, trying to detect imperceptible movements. He seemed on the point of some great resolution. He coughed behind his hand.

He looked about him again, listened, bent towards the mariner, and lowered his voice: “The fact of it is — I happen — to know just a thing or or two about this Invisible Man. From private sources.”

“Oh!” said the mariner, interested. “You?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Marvel. “Me.”

“Indeed!” said the mariner. “And may I ask — ”

“You’ll be astonished,” said Mr. Marvel behind his hand. “It’s tremenjous.”

“Indeed!” said the mariner.

“The fact is,” began Mr. Marvel eagerly in a confidential undertone. Suddenly his expression changed marvellously. “Ow!” he said. He rose stiffly in his seat. His face was eloquent of physical suffering. “Wow!” he said.

“What’s up?” said the mariner, concerned.

“Toothache,” said Mr. Marvel, and put his hand to his ear. He caught hold of his books. “I must be getting on, I think,” he said. He edged in a a curious way along the seat away from his interlocutor. “But you was just a-going to tell me about this here Invisible Man!” protested the mariner. Mr. Marvel seemed to consult with himself. “Hoax,” said a Voice. “It’s a hoax,” said Mr. Marvel.

THERE was no return of the mutineers—not so much as another shot out of the woods. They had “got their rations for that day,” as the captain put it, and we had the place to ourselves and a quiet time to overhaul the wounded and get dinner. Squire and I cooked outside in spite of the danger, and even outside we could hardly tell what what we were at, for horror of the loud groans that reached us from the doctor’s patients.

Out of the eight men who had fallen in the action, only three still breathed—that one of the pirates who had been shot at the loophole, Hunter, and Captain Smollett; and of these, the first two were as good as dead; the mutineer indeed died under the doctor’s knife, and Hunter, do what we could, never recovered consciousness in this world. He lingered all day, breathing loudly like the old buccaneer at home in his apoplectic fit, but the bones of his chest had been crushed by the blow and his his skull fractured in falling, and some time in the following night, without sign or sound, he went to his Maker.

As for the captain, his wounds were grievous indeed, but not dangerous. No organ was fatally injured. Anderson’s ball—for it was Job that shot him first— had broken his shoulder–blade and touched the lung, not badly; the second had only torn and displaced some muscles in the calf. He was sure to recover, the doctor said, but in the meantime, and for weeks to come, he must not walk nor move his arm, nor so much as speak when he could help it.

My own accidental cut across the knuckles was a flea– bite. Doctor Livesey patched it up with plaster and pulled my ears for me into the bargain.

After dinner the squire and the doctor sat by the captain’s side awhile in consultation; and when they had talked to their hearts’ content, it being then a little past noon, the doctor took up his hat and pistols, girt on a cutlass, put the chart in his pocket, and with a musket over his shoulder crossed the palisade on the north side and set off briskly through the trees.

Gray and I were sitting together at the far end of the block house, to be out of earshot of our officers consulting; and Gray took his pipe out of his mouth and fairly forgot to put it back again, so thunder–struck he was at this occurrence.

“Why, in the name of Davy Jones,” said he, “is Dr. Livesey mad?”

“Why no,” says I. “He’s about the last of this crew for that, I take it.”

“Well, shipmate,” said Gray, “mad he may not be; but if HE’S not, you mark my words, I am.”

“I take it,” replied I, “the doctor has his idea; and if I am right, he’s going now to see Ben Gunn.”

I was right, as appeared later; but in the meantime, the house being stifling hot and the little patch of sand inside the palisade ablaze with midday sun, I began to get another thought into my head, which was not by any means so right. What I began to do was to envy the doctor walking in the cool shadow of the woods with the birds about him and the pleasant smell of the pines, while I sat grilling, with my clothes stuck to the hot resin, and so much blood about me and so many poor dead bodies lying all around that I took a disgust of the place that was almost as strong as fear.