After a bit, they passed over all the intervening lava field and struck amongst the grass and trees; and then they came up to Mr Flinders, who was still lashed on the back of his tortoise, which had ‘brought up all standing’ by the side of a little water-spring, and was greedily gulping down long draughts of the limpid stream that rippled through the glade beneath the shade of a number of dwarf oaks and zafrau trees which had orchilla moss growing in profusion on their trunks—some of these being nearly three feet in diameter, and bigger, Jim said, than any trees he had previously seen on the island.
Those in pursuit of the skipper thought he would have stopped on thus meeting the first-mate.
But, no. He did not halt for an instant.
“Come on, Flinders,” he only called out. “Come on, Flinders, we air arter the buccaneer cap’en an’ the treasure!”
Then, plunging down the side of the hill he made for a bare space further down beyond the trees, waving his arms over his head and shouting and screaming at the pitch of his voice, like the raging madman that he had become.
Arrived at the bottom of the declivity, the captain abruptly paused; and Jim Chowder and Jan, who were close behind, came up with him.
There was no need to stop him; for the skipper flung himself on the ground at a spot where, to their wonder, they now observed three skeletons sitting up and arranged in a circle; while in the centre of the terrible group of bony figures was a cask on end, whose odour at once betrayed its contents.
Rum!
A pannikin was on the ground beside the hand of one of the remnants of mortality, and this the skipper took up, drawing a spigot from out of the cask and filling it.
“Hyar’s to ye, my brave buccaneers!” he cried, tossing it off as if it had been water. “Hyar’s to ye all an’ the gold!”