At first the little wood was so dark that I could not see, or scarce see, the moon a-shining dimly through the thickness--a thickness all made of wild orange, citron, and pomegranate trees, as well as of campeachy trees, and mountain cabbage palms. Yet soon this wood opened out somewhat; there rose before my eyes a little glade, on which the moon did here shine as though on a sweet English field at home, and, reaching this, I perceived by stopping and looking carefully that my man had passed this way. The long grass was all trodden down--nay, so much so, that the two must have also come this way when they set out as comrades--and, since the imprints of the footsteps were most uneven and without regularity, I felt sure my drunken pirate had struggled and staggered along this track. So across the little glade I went, following ever the irregular crushings down of the grass, until I came to where it was bordered by more thick underbrush and shrub, and then, even had I doubted I was on the steps of Alderly, I could do so no longer. For now through that thick brushwood and tangled growth of briar, and lacery of trailing things, there was crushed aside a most distinct opening through which a man, or men, must have passed, while, had I desired further proofs of where the man had gone whom I sought, it was before me. Lying on the brushwood, catched off and torn by a thorn, was the broken end of Alderly's red feather, the piece that had hung down over his savage face as he forced the diver to slay himself, and that gave, even in that awful moment, an appearance to him of almost comicality. A comicality, though, to cause a shudder! Now did I, therefore, loosen my blade in its sheath and set my pistols in my belt carefully, for, since by this time I had gone a mile at least, 'twas not very like I should go much farther before coming on to the desperado, unless he should have turned off at an angle--a thing I could not judge he should have any reason to do. And so I went on very carefully, keeping ever a watch about and around me, so that I should fall into no trap. Soon, however, I did perceive that the path turned, as I guessed it might perhaps do, and I thought the time was not yet come for me to get up with my chase, when, to my astonishment--in spite of my former ideas that there might be other buccaneers upon this isle--there came to me the sounds of singing and revelling, of shouting and whooping and drinking of healths, and clapping of canikins or glasses on a table. "The health," I heard a voice shout, "of Winstanley, the diver of Liverpool, the man who strove to contend with Alderly. His health in the place where he is gone, and another to his taker off!" And then there followed the banging and smashing of drinking vessels on the table again, and huzzas and shriekings. Next uprose a voice a-trolling of a song.