I remember falling asleep under a plantain-tree, on the summit of the cliff, as we sat there together one afternoon, on the look-out as usual.
I dreamt that he and I were taken off the island by a ship; but the joy inspired by this release was considerably lessened on my discovering that she was a pirate, and manned by ruffians who were his friends and former messmates.
As we bore away to sea, I saw them in close conversation; I heard their ominous words, and saw their scowling eyes fixed furtively on me, while Knuckleduster told them, that I alone could reveal to the world, where the Spanish treasure lay, and unanimously they resolved to throw me overboard. In vain did I struggle, intreat, offer bribes, and promise to relinquish all interest in the sunken ship or her millions of pieces of eight! Strong hands were upon my arms—and huge, bony fingers clutched my throat. I was hurried to the ship's side, and saw the white foam running under the counter to leeward, as she swept along with a spanking breeze upon her quarter. And now, methought that Knuckleduster, with a refinement of cruelty peculiarly his own, ordered me to be sewn up in a hammock and buried alive in the sea.
No sooner was this proposed, than amid brutal shouts and jests it was done; my body was straightened, lashed, round with a rope, tied up like a mummy, and while the pirate's black flag, with its skull and cross-bones, was waved in mockery over me, I saw two 32-pound shots taken from the combing of a hatchway and tied to my heels. I shall never forget the agony of that fancied peril! The beads of perspiration were rolling from my brow.
A mock burial service was read over me. I heard the solemn words pronounced, which until the resurrection consigned my body to the deep!
A dozen of hands now seized the grating whereon I lay, to cast me overboard to leeward, when the report of a cannon, which the pirates fired as a signal, made me bound from the turf on which I had been sleeping.
I was now awake—quite awake on the green turf; but as if to continue the dream and perpetuate its agony, I heard distinctly, at the instant of endeavouring to rise, the boom of a real cannon tingling in my ears, and felt the hard coarse hand of Knuckleduster on my throat—his knee upon my chest, and saw his fierce and murderous eyes glaring into mine, like those of a cobra capello.
A ship was off the coast, and now the double time of deliverance, or of death, was at hand!
During my sleep and my terrible dream, this ship had been approaching, and, as the wretch, my companion, watched her, he resolved to silence me for ever, that I might neither reveal his crimes or the secret of the sunken galleon to others, and having no weapon, had resorted to strangulation by the savage strength of two powerful hands and arms.
The bewilderment caused by my recent dream was still upon me, and rendered my resistance feeble at first. Already he had clutched all that remained of my tattered neckcloth, and given it a fierce wrench by his muscular right hand; then, when my head was turned round by the agony of this compression, as if to increase the bitterness of dying helplessly at the mercy of such a wretch, I could see from the summit of the cliff, about four miles off on the blue evening waters, a large frigate under a full spread of canvas, approaching the island.