Hoggett in a fury caught up a musket that stood against the wall, and was presenting it at Billy, but I knocked it up, and bade him, in a very different tone from what I had used as yet, have a care. He seemed surprised at my firmness, and put down the musket, and then, seeing that the other men had come up, and were standing at watch in a little knot, I turned to them, with the intent to appeal to their sense of justice, believing that if I could once get them to break away from Hoggett's dominance all might be well. But I had not spoken a dozen words when Hoggett, who, as his words had shown, was longing to pay off his score against me for wounding him that time, aimed a blow at me, which, however, I saw coming out of the corner of my eye, so that I was ready for it, and parrying it with my left arm, I dealt him such a blow upon his body that he fell doubled up at the doorway. In a moment Chick sprang across him, cutlass in hand, and made for me, and Wabberley came after him, and Hoggett called on the other men to seize me; and though Billy sprang instantly to my side, I saw that the odds were too great against us, and that we had better run for it. I stepped back just in time to escape Chick's cutlass, and at the same time Billy thrust his foot in front of Wabberley, so that the big man came down very heavily on his face; and then we sprinted across the drawbridge, and pulled it after us, so that the men that pursued us were brought up on the brink of the moat, and could do no more than shake their fists and curse us. Billy and I went on leisurely with Little John, who had come after us, and considering what we should do we determined to betake ourselves to the thicket on the slope of the mountain, and it was quite dark before we got there. We made ourselves as comfortable as we could for the night, being strangely reminded of our first coming to the island and the fears and terrors of that time; but we had no such disquietude of mind now, and I think in our hearts we were both glad to have broken with the seamen. When I reproached myself for not having the presence of mind to resume possession of our hut immediately after the savages had departed, Billy said it wouldn't have been much good, because the seamen could not choose but stay on the island, their boat being gone, and things would have come to pretty much the same pass; but he had no sooner said it than he let forth a sharp cry of dismay: "Our canoe, master!" And then I remembered that, having laid our canoe up in the cave, we had no means of getting to her, now that the entrance to the cavern was barred, for we could not climb down the face of the cliffs, nor had we any other boat or raft to carry us there by sea. This was a very staggering situation to be in, and Billy said it was a shame that after we had been so happy all these years we should have all our troubles over again. Sleep overtook us before we saw any way out of our difficulties, which stared us in the