I remember, falling through a glade of the wood and shining bright as
jewels on the flowery mantle of the wreck. It began to be chill; the
tide was rapidly fleeting seaward, the schooner settling more and more
on her beam-ends.

I scrambled forward and looked over. It seemed shallow enough, and
holding the cut hawser in both hands for a last security, I let myself
drop softly overboard. The water scarcely reached my waist; the sand was
firm and covered with ripple marks, and I waded ashore in great spirits,
leaving the HISPANIOLA on her side, with her main-sail trailing wide
upon the surface of the bay. About the same time, the sun went fairly
down and the breeze whistled low in the dusk among the tossing pines.

At least, and at last, I was off the sea, nor had I returned thence
empty-handed. There lay the schooner, clear at last from buccaneers
and ready for our own men to board and get to sea again. I had nothing
nearer my fancy than to get home to the stockade and boast of my
achievements. Possibly I might be blamed a bit for my truantry, but the
recapture of the HISPANIOLA was a clenching answer, and I hoped that
even Captain Smollett would confess I had not lost my time.

So thinking, and in famous spirits, I began to set my face homeward for
the block house and my companions. I remembered that the most easterly
of the rivers which drain into Captain Kidd's anchorage ran from the
two-peaked hill upon my left, and I bent my course in that direction
that I might pass the stream while it was small. The wood was pretty
open, and keeping along the lower spurs, I had soon turned the corner
of that hill, and not long after waded to the mid-calf across the
watercourse.