“We laboured at the rowing as best we might, the rogues lolling at their ease. Only, when the pinnace was got three parts in, they double-banked the oars to speed her through the shore-breakers.
“Having landed, our party was ordered in single file, and so marched up the beach. Some six or seven pirates went on either side, bearing pistols; while Ouvery took the lead.
“We crossed the beach of white sand. It cast a blinding glare (the sun now being high); so that we were glad to come presently into a belt of cocoa trees, the porch of a dense wood. We passed within this wood, following a secret path.
“We had penetrated, it might be, a quarter of a mile, when there was made to us an intimation. In our path, and shining beneath a rift in the overgrowth, we spied something round and white, like a great chalk stone. We came up to it. ’Twas a human skull. It grimaced in the sun with its glistering laughter.
“But Ouvery, turning about, laughed aloud, ‘Ho! ho! my boys!’ cried he, ‘See how he grins! So shall ye grin anon!’
“He stepped to the death’s head; and, bowing with vilest mockery, ‘What cheer, comrade?’ said he, ‘and have they forgotten ye? Come, hist along to Heaven!’
“And, drawing back his great foot, he sent the death crashing into the overgrowth.
“We went a little farther, and came, as it should seem, to an impenetrable dense thicket that was faced with flowering creepers. Ouvery hereupon called a halt; and, stepping to the thicket, he thrust his hand within, and felt about amongst the stems and leaves. Next moment, that which we had taken to be a thicket shook and was broken, and a slab of iron swung forward on hinges, leaving in the midst an orifice as black as night.
“Amazed at the sight, and fearing we knew not what, we continued to gaze.
“My lad, as we thus stood, there befell a thing that lifted the hair on my scalp!”