I smiled, for I did not think it would come to burying yet, and Billy asked me what there was to laugh at, for he would not care to demean himself by burying such rascals; and then I considered whether to tell him the further part of my plan, and decided to wait yet a little. I was in no more doubt than he was that the men were beginning to feel the pinch of want, which had urged them to their late desperate assault, they suspecting, I suppose, that we had full stores which we were hoarding from them. A week or two more, I thought, and my scheme, by the very flux of time, would be brought to maturity. Meanwhile I deemed it well to make another visit to the cavern to replenish our own stores, and I saw with concern how low our stock was falling; indeed, if I had not seen by their haggard look that the men were already in straits, I should have been anxious about the possibility of us two holding out any longer than they. [Sidenote: Suppliants] It was about ten days, I think, after that business of the bridge, when one morning, an hour or two after daybreak, we heard a loud shout from the cliff opposite our rock. A hurricane had been blowing during the night, as bad as any we had had since we came to the island, and worse than any since the mariners came; and the wind had been set in that direction in which it gave that deep and melancholy organ-note from the mouth of the cave. It sprang up so suddenly that we had no warning of it, and could not sail to the cave; but very fortunately the north side of the rock was not exposed to the tempest, so that our canoe suffered no hurt. Billy and I had slept very little, being very much put about to keep ourselves dry; but when the fury of the storm abated towards morning, we fell asleep, and were awakened by the shout I have mentioned. Seizing our bows and arrows, we ran to the edge of the plateau, and peeping through a crevice in the rock we beheld Wabberley standing some little way from the brink of the cliff, and holding up a stick to which was tied a frayed and tattered shirt. "A flag of truce, Billy," said I, and I am sure the tone of my voice must have betrayed my inward elation. "No, it's Pumfrey's shirt, master," says Billy. "I know it by the blue spots. What's he stuck it on to the silly old stick for?" "For a flag of truce," I repeated; "to show he's an envoy come to sue for terms of peace, perhaps." "I don't know what them there words mean," says Billy, "but you look uncommon pleased about it, so I suppose it's all right. But I say, master, look; there's the whole lot of them among the trees yonder. What's in the wind now?"